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Alexandra Federico McGrath, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: “Cultivating Critical Language Awareness to Inform, Teach, and Transform: A Raciolinguistic Analysis of the Languaging Experiences of Racialized Bilinguals as They Move Into and Through Higher Education”
Faculty Advisor: Deb Palmer

Alex's dissertation drew on critical ethnography and counterstorytelling to explore the experiences of eight racialized bilingual women – all former students or advisees from the South Bronx - as they navigated the transition into and through college. She designed and led a six-session virtual workshop to support students to develop critical language awareness and pride in their own linguistic practices. Drawing on interviews, workshop recordings and artifacts, she found that students with racialized, minoritized identities often experience marginalization based on how they speak and write, while also building community and leveraging their linguistic and cultural skills to navigate systems not designed for them. Participants described the workshop as a powerful counterspace that affirmed their experiences.

María Ruíz-Martínez, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: “Translanguaging Within the Margins: Reimagining Teaching and Learning With/From Transborder Public Art”
Faculty Advisor: Jamy Stillman

Dr. María-Ruiz-Martinez’s dissertation examines how transborder muralists in Milwaukee’s South Side transform public space into sites of memory, resistance, and intergenerational learning. Grounded in Chicana/x feminist epistemologies, translanguaging theory, and multiliteracies scholarship, María drew from pláticas, community encuentros, and arts-based methods, including digital collage and visual memos, to analyze murals not merely as visual texts, but as pedagogical acts that enact community-based knowledge production and cultural critique. Among its multiple powerful contributions, this project reframes public art as a central pedagogical and epistemological tool, expanding notions of literacy beyond the written word and institutional schooling.

Lydia Sollenberger, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: “Opportunities for Shared Writing for Emergent Bilinguals with Writing Needs”
Faculty Advisor: Alison Boardman

Dr. Lydia Sollenberger’s dissertation explored how one teacher modified instruction to include Emergent bilingual students with disabilities during a dual language summer school program. Using a multiple case study design, she explored opportunities for shared writing during a Spanish writing unit. Her study adds valuable insight into inclusive practices for Emergent bilingual students with disabilities, including teacher and student moves that support participation and develop students’ identities as writers. Through detailed and thoughtful analysis, Dr. Sollenberger also identified exclusionary practices in the writing community. Notably, the predominance of English during Spanish writing time negatively impacted participation of her focal students.��

Alexis Erin Hunter, Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice and Learning Sciences & Human Development
Dissertation: “We Have Everything We Need: Ancestral Healing Informing Pathways to Collective Liberation in the Lives of Youth of Color”
Faculty Advisors: Terrenda White and Ben Kirshner

Dr. Lex Hunter’s dissertation examined holistic approaches to activism by youth facing systemic oppression and state-sanctioned violence. Drawing on Black feminist theory and using a community-based participatory research design, Dr. Hunter worked with queer and femme Black and Latine youth to explore the interconnections among resistance, healing, and community. From her close collaborations with youth, we learn to reimagine an ethics of care that is collective and embodied and draws on family histories and ancestral practices of survival. Her dissertation is aptly titled, “We Have Everything We Need: Ancestral Healing Informing Pathways to Collective Liberation in the Lives of Youth of Color.” Congrats, Dr. Hunter!

Helen Marie Baynum, Literacy Studies
Dissertation: “Navigating Shifts in Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction with K-5 Teachers”
Faculty Advisor: Silvia Noguerón-Liu

Dr. Helen Baynum’s dissertation describes her joint inquiry with elementary educators, in the complex, and sometimes “foggy” work of navigating early literacy reform. Dr. Baynum spent an academic year documenting her participation in data-driven instruction meetings, co-planning, and co-teaching, as part of a collaborative professional development project. Findings illustrate the tensions she and teacher partners encountered as they implemented new curricula and assessment practices. Her study also examines sensemaking moments where teachers reflected on their past and current experiences. Dr. Baynum’s work helps us see what is possible when you walk the walk, with heart and conviction to do what’s right for children.

Han Nah Kim, Literacy Studies
Dissertation: “Decolonizing Social Emotional Learning: Cultivating Diasporic Educational Spaces for Afghan Refugee-background Students”
Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Dutro

Dr. Han Nah Kim’s dissertation reimagines social and emotional learning through a decolonial lens grounded in the lived experiences of Afghan refugee-background students. Central to this work are the deep, sustained relationships she cultivated with teachers and children at her partner school, partnerships she began in her first year at CU. Through collaborative engagement with teachers and interviews with children, she co-developed practices that challenge deficit narratives and foreground students’ diasporic ways of knowing. Her impactful, beautifully written research demonstrates how teacher–researcher collaborations can bring theory to practice, enacting SEL as a more just, responsive, and humanizing educational practice.

Kyla McClure, Research and Evaluation Methodology
Dissertation: “The Promises and Pitfalls of Using Large-Scale Assessment in the Classroom”
Faculty Advisor: Derek Briggs

Dr. Kyla McClure has earned her PhD in the Research and Evaluation Methodology program. Her outstanding three-article dissertation is entitled “The Promises and Pitfalls of Using Large-Scale Assessment in the Classroom.” Kyla’s research asks a deceptively simple question: do the assessments we give students actually help teachers teach better? Her dissertation examines modular interim assessments increasingly common in today's classrooms. The findings, based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, offers empirically driven insights for how states can support assessments that genuinely support learning. Kyla is now a postdoctoral scholar at the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment.

Peter Karanevich, STEM Education
Dissertation: “A Case Study of Conceptualizations of Teaching and Learning in Graduate Mathematics”
Faculty Advisor: David Webb

Dr. Peter Karanevich’s dissertation examined how doctoral students in mathematics perceive and experience learning during the early stages of their PhD program. Using interviews, observations, and composite narratives, Peter analyzed how students appropriate tools for learning, struggle with making sense of graduate-level mathematics, and negotiate program demands. He identified tensions between students’ private and dialogic sense-making and documents how program-level structures impact students’ opportunities to learn. Dr. Karanevich’s work attempts to humanize the mostly uncharted field of doctoral mathematics programs and provides suggestions for those interested in fostering more supportive environments for students studying graduate-level mathematics.

Loraine Loretta B. Smith Glidewell, Teacher Learning, Research & Practice
Dissertation: “From Fish Guts to Fireflies: Finding the Magic of Rural Education in Pre-Service Teacher Learning”
Faculty Advisor: Melissa Braaten

When asked to define “rural,” many say: “it’s the middle of nowhere;” but, for Loraine, “rural” is the middle of somewhere special. Motivated by her experience as a teacher in rural Colorado, Dr. Glidewell's dissertation examines how teacher preparation opens new possibilities for teachers interested in rural education. Dr. Glidewell surveyed pre-service teachers statewide and found few opportunities to learn about rural education during teacher preparation – even in Colorado where 80% of schools are rural. She then created a Rural Education Club for future teachers. The Club is making rural education visible because, like fireflies, they are shining a light on the magic of rural education.

Karen Marie Crofton
Dissertation: “Understanding Engineering Students' Motivations for Engaging in Entrepreneurial Opportunities”
Faculty Advisor: Laura Kornish

Karen Marie Crofton has earned a PhD in Engineering Education. Her dissertation is titled: "Understanding Engineering Students' motivations for Engaging in Entrepreneurial Opportunities." Her research uncovers what motivates engineering students to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities and shows how entrepreneurship and a tolerance of ambiguity can equip them with high‑value skills essential for contemporary engineering careers. Congrats, Dr. Crofton!

Larissa Lynn Schwartz
Dissertation: “From Pilot to Global Scale: Iterative Teaching and Curriculum Design for Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence”
Faculty Advisor: Tom Yeh

Larissa Lynn Schwartz has earned a PhD in Engineering Education. She's an accomplished designer, educator, researcher, and entrepreneur. Her dissertation, titled “From Pilot to Global Scale: Iterative Teaching and Curriculum Design for Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence,” examines how introductory GenAI curricula can be designed, implemented, and iteratively refined across diverse contexts, from small pilot classrooms to global online audiences. She examines how this rapidly evolving technology reshapes teaching, focusing on education, industry, ethics, and accessibility, while offering a scalable, learner-centered approach to curriculum design. Best wishes, Dr. Schwartz!