VITAL Scholars

Da’Ja’Nay Askew
Indiana University Bloomington

"Beyond Size: A Critical Quantitative Examination of the Impact of Faculty Relations on Black Students’ Sense of Belonging at Private Liberal Arts Institutions"
This presentation explores how faculty-student interactions affect Black students’ sense of belonging at private liberal arts colleges. Using Bronfenbrenner’s theory and NSSE data, it highlights how race, gender, and first-generation status shape relationships in predominantly White settings, stressing the importance of inclusive faculty practices to combat systemic racism

Bio
Da'Ja'Nay Askew holds a Bachelor's in Psychology and Social Work from Defiance College and a Master's in Higher Education from Purdue University. She is a third-year PhD student in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program at Indiana University. Askew has abundant experience in program development for future faculty members and higher education professionals looking to implement equitable practices in their work. She has previous experience in consulting where she met with instructors regarding anti-racist pedagogy in the classroom while creating equitable research projects. She has over 10 years of teaching experience at the primary, secondary, and college levels. Askew values social justice, equality, and equity as she is on her way to becoming a strong change agent and celebrity scholar.

Nicole Contreras-Garcia
University of Wisconsin–Madison

"Dodging Around It: How Racialized Institutional Conditions at Community Colleges Impact Transfer for Students of Color"
This mixed methods dissertation examines policies and institutional conditions at a Midwestern community college that contribute to racial disparities in transfer outcomes. Using the strategic racial equity framework, it combines survey data and interviews to reveal racialized barriers and offers insights for reforming institutional practices to improve transfer access for students of color.

Bio
Nicole Contreras-García is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Guided by her larger research agenda, she uses qualitative and mixed methods to identify holistic support for and in collaboration with racially and ethnically minoritized community college students. Contreras’ passion for community colleges stems from her time as a student at her local community college, Rio Hondo College. She is a former McNair scholar and received her BA in Sociology from UCLA and MS in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison.

Jayla Moody Marshall
North Carolina State University 

"From Margins to Meaning: Understanding Purpose and Identity Development among Black Undergraduate Women at Predominantly White Institutions"
This talk explores how Black undergraduate women (BUW) at predominantly White institutions develop purpose despite racism and sexism. Using sista circle methodology and hermeneutic phenomenology, the study examines BUW’s experiences to guide educators in supporting their holistic development.

Bio
Jayla Moody Marshall is a PhD candidate in Higher Education, Opportunity, Equity and Justice at NC State University. Her scholarship critically questions the outcomes of higher education, examining students' purposes, joy, and dreams, and who possesses the privilege to pursue these concepts. 

Darion A. Wallace
Stanford University

"Repudiating (Un)freedom: Assembling the Foundations of the Early Black Education & Abolition Movements in California, 1850-1910"
This dissertation examines abolitionist pedagogies in the Black radical tradition, exploring Black education in antebellum California through periodicals, papers, and convention minutes. It highlights Black teachers’ transformative role in the sociopolitical landscape of the American West, focusing on figures like Rev. Jeremiah Burke Sanderson and bridging a gap in the Black educational archive to explore the limits and potential of abolitionist education.

Bio
Darion A. Wallace is a PhD candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Education in the Race, Inequality and Language in Education and History of Education programs. Born and raised in Inglewood, CA, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric and African American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in International Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University. As a transdisciplinary Black Education Studies scholar, Wallace’s program of research interrogates the ways K-12 American schools (re)produce logic of (anti)blackness and structure the life and educational outcomes of Black students across space and time. 

Sasha Mejia-Bradford
University of Pennsylvania

"Resilient Beats: Exploring Latino Students' Cultural Orientation & HRV Responses to Racial-Ethnic Discrimination"
In-the-moment experiences of Racial Ethnic Discrimination (RED) are stressful and lead to emotional, psychological, and physiological dysregulation, impacting the Autonomic Nervous System. These stressors contribute to long-term health disparities. Despite the prevalence of RED, its real-time physiological effects, remain underexplored. Guided by García-Coll’s Integrative Model, this study examines how cultural values like familism buffer RED stress, measured through heart rate variability using wearable tech and Ecological Momentary Assessment. The study aims to inform the future creation of culturally sensitive mental health interventions.

Bio
Sasha Mejia-Bradford is an IES fellow and PhD Candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development at the University of Pennsylvania, researching how cultural values buffer Latino adolescents from in-the-moment racial-ethnic discrimination stress using wearable tech. She is part of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative lab working on a RCT for a racial literacy intervention to improve adolescent coping. A former teacher and research manager, Mejia-Bradford integrates education and quantitative analysis to promote resilience in students of color. She holds two master’s degrees in Secondary Education and Program Evaluation and a BA in Ed & Applied Psychology.

Jacqueline Y. Paiz
Indiana University Bloomington

"Shaping The Narrative: Latine Graduate Students Perspectives on Mental Health Treatment and Therapy"
This study aims to explore how Latine graduate students discuss and understand mental health treatment and therapy, an underexplored area in the field of mental health research. The research goal is to enhance the accessibility and effectiveness of mental health services for this demographic.

Bio
Jacqueline Paiz is a PhD student in Counseling Psychology at Indiana University - Bloomington. Her research interests include attitudes toward seeking psychotherapy, social determinants of mental health, and intergenerational trauma among people of color through a health equity lens. 

Madison Allen Kuyenga                                   
Michigan State University

"Investigating the Design of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Computer Science Education "
This talk emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies in advancing equity in CS. I will present the design narrative of a collaborative, design-based research project involving teachers, researchers, and cultural experts, leading to the development of the CompuTiles project. This project harnesses African diasporic heritage knowledge to support computational thinking and design in Advanced Placement CS Principles (AP CSP) courses at two high schools. Findings from this study provide a robust design narrative on the benefits and challenges within the design space of CompuTiles, offering insights into how heritage knowledge can enrich and expand CS education for all students.

Bio
Madison Allen Kuyenga is a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on integrating indigenous, vernacular, and computational knowledge into technologies and tools that center on cultural heritage, diversity and equity. 

Akira Harper                                   
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth

"Developing Antiracist Pedagogy in Science Education: A Participatory Design Research Approach"
This dissertation draws on an antiracist participatory design research (PDR) approach, to incorporate the recommendations for antiracist science teaching of 5 multilingual youth, as well as 3 science teachers as they address and/or extend the youths’ recommendations. Findings contribute to the research field methodologically, by highlighting the importance of the relational dynamics between researcher-participants and empirically, with science teachers and youth by informing and expanding upon the kinds of antiracist or humanizing teaching strategies and considerations that they feel best support the STEM classroom.

Bio
Akira Harper’s experience as a Black, historically underrepresented, first-generation woman has informed her approach as a developing critical STEM scholar, researcher, and educator. Her research and scholarship are situated in understanding how raciolinguistic, antiracist, and/or antiblack ideologies manifest themselves in STE(A)M teachers’ discourses, teaching, as well as the organizations of learning, in ways that become consequential to the positioning or disciplinary engagement of racialized youth. She is currently teaching as an Assistant Teaching Professor, at UMass Dartmouth, as she finishes up her dissertation.

Amber Lawson                              
Michigan State University

"Di•VERSE Literacy: Culturally Responsive Rap and Hip Hop Foundational Literacy Skills Instruction Centering Children Who Self-Identify as Black, Brown, and People of Color"
 When children engage with culturally relevant texts, they can advance their Academic success in literacy, experience a sense of Belonging in classrooms, and engage in Criticality as a community that embraces diversity and inclusion. While traditional foundational literacy instruction does not build with Black and Brown children’s identities and experiences as strengths, Lawson’s scholarship supports K-2 educators in filling this gap. Through her design of Di•VERSE Literacy, Lawson provides children with beautiful imagery, experiences that are culturally influenced in just ways, and rich linguistic practices to support children’s literacy development. 

Bio
Amber Lawson is a PhD candidate in Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education specializing in Language and Literacy and Urban Education at Michigan State University. Her research interest is in making foundational literacy culturally responsive for children of Color in K-2 by incorporating children’s identities, home languages, and lived experiences as assets throughout their learning. With two years of teaching kindergarten and four years of teaching first grade in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, Lawson’s experiences as an early elementary teacher play a vital role in her research and teaching. 

Laxmi Ojha 
Michigan State University                            

"Investigating the Design of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Computer Science Education"
Despite calls for asset-based approaches to support multilingual learners (MLs), U.S. schools continue to implement policies that marginalize these students. Drawing from a year-long ethnographic case study grounded in a sociocultural perspective on literacy, this presentation examines how multilingual immigrant students are discursively positioned in a high school and how this impacts their educational experiences in relation to their language, literacy, and identity construction. Findings show that while MLs were praised for their multilingualism and resilience, they were marginalized, limiting educational opportunities.

Bio
Laxmi Prasad Ojha is a PhD. candidate in Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the language and literacy practices of transnational multilingual children and youth across family, school, and community contexts. His work has been published in various academic journals and edited volumes, including International Multilingual Research Journal, Educational Philosophy and Theory, and Modern Language Journal. Laxmi has also guest edited a special issue on reimagining pre-service teacher education to prepare critically conscious teachers for multilingual classrooms for the International Multilingual Research Journal.