Morgan Polikoff is the co-principal investigator on a $400,000 grant from the Overdeck Family Foundation on the “Understanding America Study.”
Huriya Jabbar was awarded $375,000 from the Spencer Foundation Large Grants Program for a project titled, “The Emergence and Consequences of Culture Wars and Curriculum Conflicts in Education.”
Julie Marsh received a grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation for the project, “The Quiet Revolution of School Vouchers and ESAs.”
Mabel Hernandez was awarded a 2025 Faculty Fellowship from the Haynes Foundation for the proposal, “Academic Help-Seeking and Belonging among Asian and Latinx Undergraduates in Los Angeles.”
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang was awarded $2.1M dollars from the Bezos Family Foundation in support of CANDLE’s mission to leverage developmental neuroscience in ways that will create transformative and scalable educational practices.
Morgan Polikoff received more than $1M dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for the project, “Expanding Quality Signals and R&D Infrastructure.”
Shaun Harper was awarded $500,00 from the College Futures Foundation for the proposal “Commission for Racial Equity in California’s Community College.”
Steven Desir, the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice (CERPP)—in partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Education Counsel was awarded a $685,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a project to develop an equity-minded, law-attentive organizational learning series.
Adrian Huerta, partnering with the USC Keck School of Medicine, is the recipient of a $50,000 grant from the California Community Foundation to develop strengths-based programs for engaging gang-involved youth and their caregivers.
Adrian Huerta received $50,000 from the California Community Foundation to focus on gang-involved children in LA K-12 schools, with Daniel Soto.
Adrianna Kezar was awarded a $399,994 grant from ECMC Foundation for the proposal “Building Capacity for Shared Equity Leadership to Support Student Success.”
Adrianna Kezar and her team won a $600,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to expand the Change Leadership Toolkit.
Adrianna Kezar and the Pullias Center received $200,000 from the National Science Foundation for additional data analysis on the Faculty, Academic Careers and Environments project.
Brendesha Tynes was awarded a $4.6M NIH grant to build the nation’s first digital literacy and mental health platform for K–12 students.
Darnell Cole and collaborators were awarded a $50,000 LEVER grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab to conduct a randomized control trial evaluating the Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM program, for middle school and college students.
Erika Patall received a $3M grant to study the effectiveness of promoting student agency to bolster diversity in STEM classes.
Huriya Jabbar was awarded a $75,000 Spencer Foundation Vision Grant for her research examining the effects of blending school and housing policies to bolster housing stability for vulnerable families.
Huriya Jabbar was awarded $50,000 from the USC Zumberge Faculty Research & Innovation Fund for the proposal “Housing, Networks, and Mobility for Low-Income Youth: A Study of the Implementation of Federal Housing Investments to Reduce Inequality in Detroit.”
Huriya Jabbar and collaborators were awarded $600,000 from the William T. Grant Foundation for Housing, Networks, and Mobility for Low-Income Youth: A Study of the Implementation of Federal Housing Investments to Reduce Inequality in Detroit.
Huriya Jabbar and her collaborators received $442,340 from the American Institutes for Research for the study Moving in Motown: Examining the Promise of Integrated Neighborhoods and Schools Through Detroit’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative.
Huriya Jabbar and Sarah Lenhoff were awarded $250,000 from the Urban Institute, Student Upward Mobility Initiative, to study whether it is possible to measure youth social networks with administrative data in Detroit.
Huriya Jabbar was awarded a $75,000 Spencer Foundation Vision Grant for her research examining the effects of blending school and housing policies to bolster housing stability for vulnerable families.
Jerry Lucido and Steve Desir were awarded a $50,000 planning grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a student-focused law, policy, and research-backed technical assistance project.
Julie Marsh received a $50,000 grant for Renewing the Promise of a Just, Participatory Democracy: A Collaborative Research-to-Action Project to Support School Boards, from California Community Foundation.
Julie Marsh received a small grant from the California Community Foundation for Renewing the promise of a just, participatory democracy: A collaborative research-to-action project to support school boards.
Julie Posselt received $1.2M from the Sloan Foundation to expand the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium.
Julie Posselt received a $1.3M NSF grant to examine evaluation rubrics and how they affect racial equity outcomes in graduate school admissions.
Julie Posselt received $244,000 from the Urban Institute, with funding by the Mellon Foundation, for a research-practice collaborative about how to equitably enroll and serve students in the new legal landscape.
Kendrick Davis, Royel Johnson and Dwuana Bradley were awarded a $1M grant to expand criminal justice prevention research and practice efforts.
Kendrick Davis received $33,000 from the Information Sciences Institute at the Viterbi School of Engineering to co-lead research and evaluation for the CA DREAMS workforce development initiative.
Kendrick Davis, Brandi Junious, AJ Mada, Wilmon Christian, and LaNita Gregory Campbell were awarded $300,000 as a sub-grantee of the Keck School of Medicine and Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT) project, funded by a $12.4 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
Shaun Harper received a $2.6 million grant from the ECMC Foundation to study institutional innovations for men of color at four-year colleges and universities. The Kresge Foundation further awarded Harper $60,000 to continue his work on funding inequities at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Shaun Harper received $400,000 for the National DEI Defense Alliance from the Amalgamated Foundation. He also received $500,000 from the Walton Family Foundation to study young men’s post-pandemic college enrollment decisions.
Stephen Aguilar is partnering on a $4.5M U.S. Army Research Office grant to develop an AI-enhanced dashboard for instructors and students.
Yasemin Copur-Genturk received $2M from NSF to improve math instruction with AI-driven teacher professional development.
Yasemin Copur-Genturk was awarded a grant of $152,814 from Knowledgehook for the project “The Role of Knowledgehook in Improving Teaching and Learning Math.”
Yasemin Copur-Genturk, Adam Kho, and a collaborator were awarded $2 million over four years from the Institute of Education Sciences for a Diagnostic Instrument for Teachers’ Content and Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Numbers and Operations for Elementary School Teachers.
The Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice received two years of funding for the USC College Advising Corps program, $175,000 and $105,000 from LASIF-BROADEN.
The Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice was awarded multiple service agreements for the USC College Advising Corps, including $197,140 from Glendale Unified School District.
The Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice received $213,949 from the ECMC Foundation for the USC College Advising Corps program, and service agreements of $725,000 from the national College Advising Corps, $108,000 from Paramount Unified School District, and $30,042 from the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation.
Adrianna Kezar (Pullias) was awarded $1.5 million from the National Science Foundation to develop and test a national survey on faculty, and academic careers.
Julie Posselt (Pullias) was awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to examine how the use of rubrics impacts racial equity in graduate admissions.
Jenifer Crawford received $250,000 from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing for the proposal “Integrated Teacher Preparation Program Planning”.
The Race and Equity Center was awarded $758,390 in funding from City Year Los Angeles, Citrus College, California State Polytechnic University Pomona, Otis College of Art and Design, Iovine and Young Center, Wellnest, PUC Lakeview Charter High School, and Achieving the Dream.
Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice was awarded over $1.1 million in funding from the West Covina Unified School District, Lynwood Unified School District, and the College Advising Corps.
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk was awarded a $2 million grant from National Science Foundation for the proposal “Adaptive Program with Just-in-time Feedback for Preservice Teachers” with Michigan State University and University of Georgia.
Stephen Aguilar was awarded $216,000 from the Department of Defense Army Research Office for his research on artificial intelligence and its potential effects on education, with the total awarded contract being over $4 million.
Erika Patall and Stephen Aguilar were awarded a $3.99 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to research student agency in undergraduate biomedical education, a collaboration with colleagues from USC Dornsife, University of Missouri, and Arizona State University.
Morgan Scott Polikoff (CEPEG) and Anna Saavedra were awarded a $173,125 grant from the USC Schaeffer-Peterson Pandemic Policy Research Fund for their work “The long-term effects of COVID-19 and mitigation interventions on children’s well-being: Implications for education policy and future economic productivity.”
Adrianna Kezar and the Pullias Center were awarded a $50,000 grant from the TIAA Institute to expand previous research on Shared Equity Leadership through their “Successfully Enacting Shared Equity Leadership” initiative which will examine challenges to enacting Shared Equity Leadership as well as strategies for overcoming these challenges.
Adrianna Kezar and the Pullias Center were awarded a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop an online interactive curriculum and webinar series, with additional workshop formats and other engagement models to support effective use of the Change Leadership Toolkit (CLT) in promoting systemic change in higher education.
Shaun Harper (Race and Equity) was awarded a Kresge Foundation grant for $400,000 for his proposal, Advancing Racial Equity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Jerry Lucido (CERPP) was awarded a $300,000 grant from the California Community Foundation to support its USC College Advising Corps program, $151,374 to support the USC CAC program in LAUSD high schools through the Partners for Student Success program, and $10,000 from the CTBC Bank for the professional development of college advisers serving in the USC College Advising Corps program.
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) and Anna Saavedra were awarded $200,000 from the National Science Foundation for their work in “RAPID: The Impact of COVID on Children’s Well-being in 2022: Continued Evidence from the Understanding America Study.
Tatiana Melguizo (Pullias) received a $299,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study community college STEM opportunities. She will work with researchers from LACCD’s Pierce College, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Tatiana Melguizo (Pullias) partnered with LACCD and researchers from Harvard’s CEPR for a three-year study on COVID-19 recovery and have been collectively awarded a $2.9 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, their study will examine how technology can remake the student experience.
Adrian H. Huerta (Pullias) partnered with UCLA and UC Davis and received a $275,000 grant from the College Futures Foundation to develop a racial equity-centered framework for the California Community College Baccalaureate Degree program.
Stephen J. Aguilar and his colleagues received a grant of more than $690,000 from the National Science Foundation for support of their project, Determining Community Needs for Accessibility Tools that Facilitate Programming Education and Workforce Readiness for Persons with Disabilities.
Shaun Harper (Race and Equity) has been awarded an ECMC Foundation grant of more than $1.8 million for his project on Institutional Transformation for Community College Men of Color Success.ddle and high school Students’ scientific evaluation of sources and alternative claims in Earth and environmental sciences.”
Royel M. Johnson (Race and Equity/Pullias) was awarded a research grant from the American Education Research Association, funded by the National Science Foundation for his study named, “Examining the Varying Effects of Juvenile Arrest on College Enrollment for Racially/Ethnically Diverse Youth: The Role of School Level Factors.”
Morgan S. Polikoff was awarded a $139,872 grant from an anonymous foundation (their grant requirements are that they not be named) for her book project “Miseducated: How bad ideas are undermining education, and what parents can do about it.”
Adam Kho (CEPEG) was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Fordham Foundation for his proposal named, “Do Charter Authorizer Evaluations Predict School Success? Evidence from North Carolina.”
Pedro Noguera, Adam Kho, Erika Patall, Julie Marsh, and Lam Pham were awarded a Reducing Inequality Grant of $600,000 from the William T. Grant Foundation for their proposal, “Hattie’s Influences on Student Achievement Under an Institutionally Racist System: What Works for Black and Brown Students?” Doctoral students Isabel Clay, Margaret Dawson-Amoah, Michael Fienberg, Shelby Smith, Tong Tong, Amanda Vite, and former student Nikki Yates also contributed to the ongoing project.
Gale Sinatra was awarded a $165,097 grant from the National Science Foundation for her work, “Collaborative Research: Scaffolding middle and high school Students’ scientific evaluation of sources and alternative claims in Earth and environmental sciences.”
Eugenia Mora-Flores and Lindsay Kwock Hu were awarded a $10,390 grant from the USC Good Neighbors Grant Committee, for her work titled “Ednovate Schools and Problem-Based Learning.”
Laila Hasan was awarded a $15,150 grant from the USC Good Neighbors Grant Committee, for her work, “Using STEAM to Alter History: Integrating History, Science, Math, and Art.”
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for $170,000 for his collaboration on “Neighborhood Characteristics and Neurodevelopment: Risk and Protective Factors, and Susceptibility to Stressors and School Disruption During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Stephen J. Aguilar has been awarded a James H. Zumberge Faculty Research and Innovation Fund Diversity and Inclusion grant for $23,700 for his proposal, “Education Technology Use by Teachers Serving Low-Income Students: An Experience Sampling Approach.”
Shaun Harper, Brandi Jones, and Kendrick Davis (Race and Equity Center) have been awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant for $1.2 million for their proposal, “Campus Racial Climate Research Translation and Postsecondary Institutional Improvement Tools.”
Shaun Harper (Race and Equity Center) was awarded a Kresge Foundation grant for $400,000 for his proposal, “Advancing Racial Equity for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
Zoë Corwin (Pullias) joins a team of researchers from the Schools of Social Work at USC and Washington University in St. Louis as a co-principal investigator on a $3.2 million grant from the National Institute for Health for the Proud and Empowered project, designed to create safer, more empowering high school environments for students who identify as LGBTQ+ in order to enhance social justice and behavioral health.
USC’s Pullias Center partnered with LACCD and researchers from Harvard’s CEPR for a three-year study on COVID-19 recovery and have been collectively awarded a $2.9 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, their study will examine how technology can remake the student experience.
Adam Kho (CEPEG) was awarded a $35,000 AERA Research Grant for his proposal, “A Teacher Similar to Me: The Role of Student-Teacher Race.”
Adam Kho (CEPEG) was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Western Justice Center for his Research Design for Western Justice Center & Azusa Unified Partnership Program Evaluation.
Adrian Huerta (Pullias) was awarded a $70,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation for the NAED/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship 2022.
Adrianna Kezar (Pullias) was awarded a $100,000 grant from TIAA-CREF Institute for the Project on the Changing Faculty and Students Access: Faculty Models to Support Equitable Student Success.
Adrian Huerta (Pullias) was awarded a $159,203 grant from ECMC Foundation for his work on National Design & Development of Men of Color.
Shaun Harper (Race and Equity) received three new grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation totaling $1.4 million.
Adrian H. Huerta (Pullias) is Co-PI with Long Beach City College on a $990,000 US Department of Education grant focused on college pathways for gang-involved youth.
Julie Posselt (Pullias) was awarded a $50,000 grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to scale up the California Consortium for Inclusive Graduate Education.
Shaun Harper (Race and Equity) was awarded a $175,000 grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dwuana Bradley was awarded a $50,000 grant by the Spencer Foundation to support her work investigating the influence of Title V on institutional identity and anti-racist inclusion efforts at Hispanic-serving HBCUs.
Adam Kho, Tasmin Dhaliwal, Adrian Huerta, and Julie Marsh (CEPEG & Pullias) received $25,000 from the Western Justice Center to examine the implementation and impact of their conflict resolution education program in the Azusa Unified School District.
Royel M. Johnson (Pullias & Race and Equity) was awarded $35,000 from the American Education Research Association/National Science Foundation for his study titled: “Measuring the varying effects of juvenile arrest on college enrollment: the role of school level factors.”
Royel M. Johnson (Pullias & Race and Equity), the USC Race and Equity Center’s Director of Student Engagement, is on a team that has been awarded a $1,533,384 grant from the United States Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
Gale Sinatra was awarded a $50,000 grant through the Wrigley Institute’s 2022 Faculty Innovation Award.
Adrian Huerta (Pullias) was awarded a $25,000 grant from Leonetti/O’Connell Family Foundation to study student parents in community college.
Morgan Scott Polikoff (CEPEG) and Anna Saavedra were awarded $200,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for their work in “Understanding America Study 2022: Civic Education and NSF RAPID3 Administration Supplement”.
Center EDGE has received a $190,000 grant from the educational technology company GoGuardian to collaborate on a variety of activities. As part of this grant, Erika Patall will serve as the lead principal investigator and receive $135,000 to create the 2022-23 State of Engagement report in collaboration with GoGuardian researchers.
USC’s Pullias Center will create a tool and library of resources for change leaders to help create institutional transformation with a $275,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Pullias Center (Adrianna Kezar, Principal Investigator, and KC Culver, Co-PI) was awarded $1.5 million by the National Science Foundation to develop and test a nationally representative survey of postsecondary faculty.
Pullias Center receives a $563,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to nationally expand a program that provides professional development and training to advance racial equity and diversity in STEM higher education. Led by project director Julie Posselt, the grant will enable USC’s Pullias Center and its partners to expand the existing California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education (C-CIDE) pilot program. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, C-CIDE began in 2018 with 27 Ph.D. programs at five University of California campuses and USC. The expansion, called the Equity in Graduate Education (EGE) Consortium, will serve as a thriving, multi-level learning community that enables faculty and administrators to put into practice the best available research and theory about racial equity, diversity and inclusion. A main goal of the Consortium is to build capacity for systemic change in STEM graduate education by equipping members with research, tools, professional development and supportive colleagues.
Zoë Corwin (Pullias) and Alan Green, along with co-PI Rafel Angulo from the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, have been awarded $15,270 from this year’s cycle of the USC Research Collaboration Fund award for their Collaborative on Embedding Mental Health Resources in Non-Traditional Spaces group.
Darnell Cole (Social Justice) was awarded a $257,813 grant from The Haynes Foundation for his work,“Student Engagement, Exploration, and Development in STEM (SEEDS): Enhancing Outcomes for Low-Income and Minority Students.”
Robert Filback and Jenifer Crawford were awarded a $30,000 grant from the Stuart Foundation for their work, “Reimagining Education for Democracy: 21st Century Civics Learning.”
Alan Arkatov (Edge) was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Foundation for support for the Education (RE)Open.
Tatiana Melguizo (Pullias) was awarded a $121,636 (USC Rossier $86,521) grant from the Leonetti O’Connell Family Foundation for her evaluation of LOC Scholars Universal Basic Income Pilot.
Kendrick Davis (Race and Equity) received a $419,071 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his Service Design and Delivery Evaluation.
Paula Carbone received a $10,000 USC Sustainability Grant from the Provost Office.
Zoë Corwin, Joseph Kitchen,Adrianna Kezar and their Pullias Center team were awarded $5.6 million from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation for the second phase of the Promoting At-Promise Student Success (PASS) research project.
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $1,000,000 from the College Futures Foundation for the California Racial Equity Research and Resource Hub.
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $249,360 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the Racial Equity Leadership Academy for Engineering and Computer Science Department Chairs.
Alan Arkatov (Center EDGE) received a grant for $25,000 from The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for The Education (Re)Open.
Adrian H. Huerta (Pullias) secured a service agreement for $38,500 with the California State University Student Success Network.
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) (Co-Principal Investigator) and Anna Saavedera (Principal Investigator) received a grant for $198,148 from the National Science Foundation for their research study titled, “RAPID: The Impact of COVID on American Education in 2021: Continued Evidence from the Understanding America Study.”
The Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice (CERPP) received a $30,000 one-year grant from the Partnership for LA Schools for its USC College Advising Corps program.
Patricia Burch (CEPEG), Adrian Huerta (Pullias) and Elizabeth Kim received a USC Zumberge Grant to continue their work with Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) schools.
Adam Kho (CEPEG), Erika Patall, and Dean Pedro Noguera were awarded the Zumberge Diversity and Inclusion Award ($30,000) for their research study titled, “Hattie’s Influences on Student Achievement Under an Institutionally Racist System: What Works for Black and Brown Students?”
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) received a grant for $55,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for a study of the educational impact of COVID-19 on children and families.
The Pullias Center for Higher Education received a grant for $320,000 from the Arthur Vining Foundation for a qualitative study of campus leadership teams to explore how they achieve equity goals through equity leadership practices.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (CANDLE) and Jamaal Matthews at the University of Michigan, were received a NSF Mid-Career Advancement Program grant for a study titled “MCA: The Neurophysiology of Teaching Secondary Mathematics for Transcendent Purpose and Cultural Relevance.”
Gale Sinatra received a grant from the USC Research Collaboration Fund to support the university-wide collaboration, Strengthening Community-Engaged Sustainability Scholarship & Education.
Zoë Corwin (Pullias) and her team, Collaborative for Embedding Mental Health Resources in Non-Traditional Spaces group, received a grant from the USC Research Collaboration Fund.
Julie Posselt (Pullias) received a grant for $89,024 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for her research study titled, “Improving Admission Practices and Mentoring for Graduate Students.”
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $249,360 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for the STEM Racial Equity Leadership Academy.
Alan Arkatov (Center EDGE) received a grant for $500,000 from the Andrew Nikou Foundation for the Los Angeles The Education (Re)Open.
Jerry Lucido (CERPP) received a grant for $477,574 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his research study titled, “Understanding Institutional and Student Enrollment in Pandemic Response.”
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $750,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his research study titled, “Equity Workstream for Service Design and Delivery.”
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $250,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the Teacher Education Racial Equity Academy.
Jerry Lucido (CERPP) received $1,303,068 in grants from the National College Advising Corps for the USC College Advising Corps Program 2021-22.
Shaun R. Harper (Race and Equity) received a grant for $1,000,000 from the College Futures Foundation for the Racial Equity Resource and Research Hub for California Community Colleges.
Jerry Lucido (CERPP) received a grant for $65,000 from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation for the USC College Advising Corps Program 2021-22.
Kendrick Davis (Race and Equity) received a grant for $346,093 from the Walmart Foundation for his research study titled, “Building a Prevention Focused Criminal Justice Reform (CJR) Research Network.”
Jerry Lucido (CERPP) received a grant for $10,000 from CTBC Bank for the USC College Advising Corps Program 2021-22.
Math for America (MfA) received a grant for $500,000 from the La Vida Feliz Foundation.
Adam Kho (CEPEG) received a contract with colleagues at University of Nevada, Las Vegas to conduct an impact and validity study for the Nevada Educator Performance Framework, totaling $174,975.
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) received a grant from the National Science Foundation for “RAPID: Exploring COVID and the Effects on U.S. Education: Evidence from a National Survey of American Households,” with Anna Saavedra for $199,620.
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as a supplement to “COVID-19: US Data Collection for Household Response and Impact Monitoring,” with Anna Saavedra, for $50,000.
Shaun Harper and Estela Mara Bensimon (Race and Equity) received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for $300,000.
Shaun Harper and Estela Mara Bensimon (Race and Equity) received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for $500,000.
Julie Marsh (CEPEG) received a supplement in the amount of $347,000 from IES for the REACH Center to focus on COVID-19 response: “Supplemental Study #2: Qualitative Research Study on the education system’s response to COVID-19 with an explicit focus on choice policy and equity.”
Courtney Malloy received a $75,000 grant from Great Public Schools Now to work with the Los Angeles Unified School District to conduct a formative evaluation of LAUSD’s Communities of Schools Initiative.
Adrianna Kezar (Pullias) received a grant for $131,815 from the Sloan Foundation for “An Examination of the Transformative Role of Equity-Minded Leadership in Higher Education” in collaboration with the American Council on Education.
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant for $50,000 from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation for the College Advising Corps Economic Mobility Grant.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (CANDLE) received a grant from Baylor University/Templeton Foundation for the project “Adolescents’ development of values-based purpose” in the amount of $227,000.
Alan Arkatov (Center Edge) received a grant in the amount of $77,000 from Baylor University/Templeton Foundation for the project, “Hall of Fame Game Development.”
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant from the California Community Foundation for $300,000 to support the work of the College Advising Corps.
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant from the California Community Foundation for $194,250 for College Advising Corps COVID-19 Response.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (CANDLE) received a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) for $700,000 for the project “Using neural and psychological measures to characterize and strengthen developmental impacts of secondary-school teaching practices that integrate social, emotional and cognitive learning.”
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (CANDLE) received a grant for $349,999 from the Templeton Foundation for the project, “Intellectual Virtues Academy High School: Capacity-Building, Research, and Dissemination.”
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant from the national College Advising Corps for $1,265,523.
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant from the Joyce Foundation for $75,000 for College Advising Corps Financial Aid Modeling.
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) received a grant from the Gilbert Foundation for $65,000 for College Advising Corps – LAUSD.
Jerome Lucido (CERPP) was also awarded $149,400 in contracts for 2019-20 by its various Los Angeles Unified School District high school partners for the USC College Advising Corps program.
Brendesha Tynes (CELDTECH) received $923,596 from the Spencer Foundation for Race related Messages, Traumatic Events Online and the Protective Function of Critical Media Literacy.
Tatiana Melguizo (Pullias) received $399,915 from the Spencer Foundation for the project Examining Implementation of a State Mandate to End Remediation in Community Colleges: A Research-Practitioner Partnership.
David Quinn (CEPEG) received a grant for $50,000 from the Spencer Foundation for Racial Inequities in Education: Communication Frames and Framing Effects.
Alan Arkatov (Center EDGE) received $70,000 from GPS Now for funding for the LA Education Open.
Alan Arkatov (Center EDGE) received $33,879 from GPS Now for funding for the LA Education Exchange Convening.
Alan Arkatov (Center EDGE) received $50,000 from the Joseph Drown Foundation for the LA Education Open.
Julie Marsh (CEPEG) received $10,000 from Stanford University for Policy Analysis for California Education.
Julie Marsh (CEPEG) received $200,000 from the Stuart Foundation for the project Improving the Local Control of Education in CA.
Zoe Corwin (Pullias) received $66,000 from the Tony Hawk Foundation for the project, Beyond the Board: A Study of Skateboarders, Education, and Society.
Adrianna Kezar (Pullias) received $50,000 from TIAA Foundation for “Models of Support for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty.”
Julie Posselt (Pullias) received an $80,397 supplement to the NSF grant that supports the California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education. With this supplement, Posselt and C-CIDE will build organizational infrastructure within and across the six participating campuses for sustainable systems of faculty development to equitably select and serve doctoral students in science and engineering disciplines.
Julie Posselt (Pullias) is collaborating with Kelly Rosinger (Penn State) on an AIR/AccessLex grant for $50,000 titled, “Exploring the Impact of LSAT-Optional Admissions on Law School Diversity and Selectivity.”
Stephen Aguilar, along with Hernan Galerpin from Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, received a grant for $30,000 from GPS Now for the project, Distance Learning and Educational Equity in the Wake of COVID-19.
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) received $362,435 from the Los Angeles Education Partners to be the evaluator for the project 21st Century California School Leadership Academy, funded by the California Department of Education.
Zoe Corwin and the Pullias Center received $525,888 from the Susan Thomas Buffett Foundation for Thompson Scholar Learning Community Study: Exploring Implementation Strategies (PASS2).
Zoe Corwin (Pullias) received $119,000 for the Provost New Directions Grant for the project, Mattering in the Margins: Skateboarder Stories of Mental Health Challenges and Opportunities.
The Center for Urban Education (CUE) received a $215,529 grant from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the Instructional and Assessment Model for Equity-Minded Competence.
Estela Bensimon (CUE)received $150,000 each from the College Futures Foundation and ECMC Foundation for a total of $300,000 for the Student Equity Planning Institute: Embedding Equity-Mindedness and Race-Consciousness in Institutional planning. The institutes focused on how equity planning and the process of data inquiry, goal setting, activity building, and funding allocation can work towards mitigating racial equity gaps. Twenty-eight community college teams and over 200 participants attended the institutes.
Adrian Huerta and William G. Tierney (Pullias) received a $300,000 grant from ECMC Foundation to study best practices for recruiting and retaining men of color in colleges and universities.
Sandra Kaplan and Jessica Manzone were awarded a $30,000 grant from the Caplan Foundation to develop an Early Childhood Curriculum.
Margo Pensavalle received $50,000 for the project, “Quality, Equitable, Affordable Teacher Residency Partnerships to Strengthen the Profession,” a multi-university collaboration with Bank Street Prepared to Teach.
Kenneth Yates received $320,000 from the Schmidt Foundation for the project Using Artificial Intelligence to Support Cognitive Task Analysis.
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk and colleagues received a $2,168,584 grant from the National Science Foundation for their project “Usable Measures of Teacher Understanding: Exploring Diagnostic Models and Topic Analysis as Tools for Assessing Proportional Reasoning for Teaching.”
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk and colleagues from Viterbi received a $750,000 award from the National Science Foundation for the project “Immersive Virtual Learning for Worker-Robot Teamwork on Construction Sites.”
Jerry Lucido (CERPP), received $1.2 million in grants from the national College Advising Corps and the Panda Cares Foundation for the USC College Advising Corps program for 2018-19.
Shaun Harper received $960,000 from the Lumina Foundation to support the USC Equity Institutes and the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates (NACCC).
Shaun Harper received $50,000 from the Ford Foundation to produce and disseminate the report “Black Students at Public Colleges and Universities: A 50 State Report Card.”
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and colleagues at ICT received $161,822 from Army Research Laboratories to implement biometrics into a Templeton Foundation-funded study to promote adolescents’ intellectual virtue development in urban low-SES contexts.
Tatiana Melguizo (Pullias), along with Co-PIs at Claremont Graduate University and UCLA, received a $100,000 grant from College Futures Foundation to support the Math Pathways Project, a study to understand Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) students’ course-taking experiences along their educational pathway from middle school into college, with the end goal to identify promising pathways or interventions that may lead to students’ success in college math.
Julie Posselt (Pullias) and colleagues received a supplemental grant of $72,032 from the National Science Foundation for their project, “Deploying Holistic Admissions and Critical Support Structures to Increase Diversity and Retention of US Citizens in Physics Graduate Programs.” The goal of this supplement is to strengthen current NSF-funded projects related to physics graduate education by creating connections among them that confer mutual benefits.
Morgan Polikoff and Adam Kho (CEPEG) will be working with AchievementNet on an evaluation project funded by the Ballmer Group for $259,215.
Julie Posselt received a $499,947 grant from the National Science Foundation to launch the California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education, a research-practice partnership of graduate schools and faculty at USC, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, UC Berkeley, and UC-Davis.
Julie Posselt and co-PIs at Cal Poly Pomona and San Jose State University received a $5,500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to scale up and study Cal-Bridge, a partnership of physics and astronomy departments in California State Universities and University of California institutions, to improve access to doctoral education in these fields for low-income, Black, Latinx, Southeast Asian, and women students.
Gale Sinatra and Co-PIs at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the La Brea Tar Pits received $1,470,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project “Re-Living Paleontology: Studying How Augmented Reality Immersion and Interaction Impact Engagement and Communicating Science to the Public.”
Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) and Anna Saaverdra received $65,000 from The International Baccalaureate for their project, “Student Pathways Through Middle School, High School and Into Postsecondary Education: MYP Student Outcomes in a Large US Public School District.”
Julie Marsh (CEPEG) along with colleagues at the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH), received $10,000,000 from the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences. The Center will be housed at Tulane University.
Erika Patall received $50,000 from the Spencer Foundation for her project, “Development of an Intervention to Promote Agentic Engagement in STEM High School Classrooms.”
Zoë B. Corwin (Pullias) received a $264,000 grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation to study the impact skateboarding has on young people and their educational and career trajectories. The Math for America program received a $3,000,000 National Science Foundation (NSF)-Noyce Grant for Math for America Los Angeles: Elevating Mathematics and Computer Science Instruction through Teacher Leadership.
Julie Marsh, Patricia Burch, and Morgan Polikoff (CEPEG) received a $100,000 grant from the California Community Foundation. The project is entitled “Educational Equity in L.A.: A Research Agenda in Service to Practice.”
Jerry Lucido received a $100,000 grant from the California Community Foundation/Los Angeles Scholars Investment Fund (LASIF) for the USC College Advising Corps program.
Zoe Corwin and William G. Tierney in the Pullias Center for Higher Education, in a partnership with Get Schooled Foundation, have been awarded a $300,000 grant from ECMC Foundation to address how digital tools can significantly impact service provision during the high stakes transition away from remedial education in the California State University system.
Julie Posselt received a $1.195 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to support the Alliance for Multicampus Inclusive Graduate Admissions (AMIGA) project, a four-year collaboration with UCLA and UC Davis to reform graduate admissions in the humanities and humanistic social science PhD programs.
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk received a NSF CAREER Award for the project, entitled “Development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Mathematics Among Beginning Teachers,” for $629,864.
Zoe Corwin and William Tierney received a $300K grant from the ECMC Foundation to develop an online campaign to improve college retention rates at California State University-Dominguez Hills.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang was awarded the Spencer Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship for 2018-2019 for $150,000 for the project “Integrating insights from social-affective neuroscience into education research and policy on social, emotional and academic development.”
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and the Brain and Creativity Institute received a grant from the Californians Dedicated to Education (CDE) Foundation for $10,000.
Julie Marsh received the Haynes Faculty Fellowship for the project, “Kaleidoscope of School Options: Differentiating School Missions and Values in Los Angeles” for $12,000.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang received a conference grant of $49,940 from the NSF to support the 6th biannual conference of the International, Mind, Brain and Education Society, which will be held at USC in September.
Shafiqa Ahmadi received a $29,994 grant from USC’s James H. Zumberge Faculty Research and Innovation Fund Diversity and Inclusion Grant program. Her project is entitled “Understanding Muslim College Student Experiences and Sense of Belonging.”
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk received a grant of approximately $1.4 million from IES for her project “Advancing Middle School Teachers’ Understanding of Proportional Reasoning for Teaching,” which will develop an interactive computer-based professional development program for mathematics teachers.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang was awarded $30,000 from USC’s James H. Zumberge Faculty Research and Innovation Fund Diversity and Inclusion Grant program. Her project is entitled “Culture-Related Diversity in Adolescent Structural and Network Brain Development.”
David Quinn received a grant of $49,354 from the Spencer Foundation for his project “A Large-Scale Analysis of Educators’ Implicit Racial Biases and their Correlates.”
Shafiqa Ahmadi and Darnell Cole received funding for the “USC Hybrid High School Longitudinal Study,” $500,000.
Shafiqa Ahmadi and Darnell Cole received funding for their project “100 Muslim College Student Experience Project in California,” $50,000.
Estela Bensimon received a grant from the Teagle Foundation and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for “An Instructional and Assessment Model for Equity-Minded Competence,” $750,000.
Adrianna Kezar received a grant from the Teagle Foundation to support two national annual awards for campuses that create best practices in faculty work that support student success. The award, The Delphi Award for Faculty Models to Support College Student Success, is offered in partnership with the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
David Quinn received a Zumberge Individual Research Award for “Teachers’ Stereotypes and Implicit Biases: New Measures and Applications in Education,” $30,000.
Jerry Lucido received a $100,000 grant from the California Community Foundation/Los Angeles Scholars Investment Fund (LASIF) for the USC College Advising Corps program.
Sandra Kaplan (PI), Pat Gallagher, Eugenia Mora-Flores and Jessica Manzone, in collaboration with Kristin Wright from the California Department of Education Special Education Division, received the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program grant from the US Department of Education for Project Reach EACH through Literacy for $400,350. The project seeks to raise achievement scores in literacy for students within heterogeneous classrooms and to increase the number of gifted learners from underrepresented populations.
Darnell Cole and John Slaughter received a NSF HER Core Research Grant for “African American Workforce Development in Physics and Astronomy: A Workshop,” $99,844.00.
David Quinn received a grant from AERA for “Trends in the Seasonal Dynamics of Test Score Gaps,” $20,000.
Angela “Laila” Hasan and Richard Rasiej, along with faculty from the USC Department of Mathematics were awarded a NSA Mathematics Education Partnership Program (MEPP) Grant for their project “A Train the Trainer Approach to Providing Professional Development in Mathematics to K-5 Teachers,” $50,000.
Frederick Freking received a grant from AAAS to support the 2017 Regional Summit on Stimulating Research and Innovation for Pre-service Education of STEM Teachers in High-Needs Schools, $50,000.
Stephen Aguilar received a grant from the AERA Fellowship Program on the Study of Deeper Learning, from American Educational Research Association & The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for “Masters of their Destinies? Hispanic Students’ Sense of Control in Relation to Post-Secondary Outcomes, a Generalized Structural Equation Modeling Approach,” 2016-2017, $20,000.
Stephen Aguilar received a grant from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) for the Educational Evaluation of Technical Knowledge Acquisition (TechKnAcq) Project, (Co-PI Gully Burns), 2017, $30,000.
Stephen Aguilar and Gale Sinatra received a USC Price School of Public Policy Social Innovation Research Grant for “The Birth of Scientists: Evaluating the Impact of the Living Lab on Urban Students’ STEM Aspirations in City Heights, San Diego,” 2017-2018, $25,000.
Estela Bensimon received a grant from the Teagle Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for “An Instructional and Assessment Model for Equity-Minded Competence,” 2017-2019, totaling $750,000.
Darnell Cole and John Slaughter received a NSF HER Core Research Grant for “African American Workforce Development in Physics and Astronomy: A Workshop,” 2017, $99,844.00.
Zoe Corwin, Bill Tierney & Adrianna Kezar were awarded a grant from Bridging Theory to Practice for “Understanding the University as a Sanctuary,” 2017, $5000.
John Pascarella and Stephen Aguilar received a grant from 2U, Incorporated, for “Assessing the Role of Asynchronous Materials in Supporting Learning,” 2017-2018, $25,000.
Morgan Polikoff received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for”Never Judge a Book By Its Cover, Use Student Achievement Instead,” Co-Principal Investigator (Principal Investigator Jon Fullerton), 2016-2018, $762,059.
Julie Posselt received a grant from NSF INCLUDES for “A National Network for Access and Inclusion in Physics Graduate Education,” Co-Principal Investigator, 2016-2018, $299,787.
Julie Posselt was awarded a grant from NSF ASPIRE for “Collaborative Research: Active Societal Participation in Research and Education” 2016-2019, $53,392.00.
Brendesha Tynes and Stephen Aguilar received a grant from 2U, Incorporated, for “Using Learning Analytics and Natural Language Processing to Explore the Role of Synchronous Chat in Knowledge Construction During Online Course Sessions,” 2017-2018, $25,000.
Patricia Burch received a grant of $49,990.00 from the Spencer Foundation for her project, “The Role of Tutors in Blended Learning for Disadvantaged Students in India.”
Faculty Distinctions
USC Rossier faculty are regularly recognized for excellence in their field.
Faculty
Award
Shaun Harper
Received his sixth honorary degree. Declared one of the top 100 leaders influencing the Hollywood film and entertainment industry. Testified to the United States House of Representatives.
Robert Rueda
Received the 2025 Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award, given to the university’s most distinguished retired faculty.
Julie Posselt
Joined the class of 2025 AERA Fellows.
Erika Patall
Joined the class of 2025 AERA Fellows.
Adrian Huerta
Named a Scholar in Residence for the ACPA Coalition on Men & Masculinities.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
The 2026 AERA Conference Co-Chair.
Gale Sinatra
Awarded the 2025 Division 15 Career Achievement Award in educational psychology.
Mimi Hoang
Received the 2025 Doug C. Haldeman Excellence in Advocacy Award from Division VII of the California Psychological Association.
Faculty
Award
Shaun Harper
American College Personnel Association Contribution to Higher Education Award
Tracy Poon Tambascia
American Council on Education Fellow
Zoe Corwin
USC Mentoring Award
Adrianna Kezar
AERA Division J Exemplary Research Award
Royel Johnson
American College Personnel Association Diamond Honoree
Gale Sinatra
Fellow of the Committee of Skeptical Inquiry
Faculty
Award
Brendesha Tynes
AERA Fellow, APA Fellow, APA Presidential Citation
Shafiqa Ahmadi
AERA Religion & Education SIG Distinguished Scholar Award
Stephen Aguilar
AERA Division C Early Career Award AERA Outstanding Reviewer Award
Jessica DuCuir-Gunby
AERA Fellow
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Member, National Academy of Education
Zoe Corwin
Joint Educational Project (JEP) Award for Community Engaged Teaching and Research
Shafiqa Ahmadi
AERA Religion & Education SIG Distinguished Scholar Award
Faculty
Award
Stephen Aguilar
AERA Motivation SIG Early Career Award
Shaun Harper
Honorary Doctorate, Georgetown University Honorary Doctorate, Whittier College
Royel M. Johnson
National Research Collaborative (NRC) for Foster Alumni and Higher Education (FAHE) Leadership Team Black Student Enrollment Expert Advisory Board Lumina Foundation Journal of Higher Education, Editorial Board
Pedro A. Noguera
Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics
Jerry Lucido
AACRAO National Student Clearinghouse Best Research Presentation Award
Faculty
Award
Pedro Noguera
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Impact Award
Shaun R. Harper
Member, National Academy of Education
Adam Kho
AERA School Turnaround and Reform SIG Emerging Scholar Award
Lawrence Picus
Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP) Outstanding Service Award
Faculty
Award
Estela Bensimon
Recognized by Diverse Issues in Higher Education as one of 35 Leading Women in Higher Education ASHE Howard E. Bowen Award McGraw Prize
Shaun R. Harper
Appointed to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s statewide task force on Equity, Higher Education, and COVID-19 Recovery
Adrian Huerta
Named a 2019-2020 Emerging Poverty Scholar Fellow
Pedro Noguera
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2020 Received the Gold for Best Magazine Feature for the article “Why School Integration Matters.” The Excel Awards, which are given by the Association Media Publishing, recognize excellence in nonprofit/association publishing.
Jennifer Phillips
Selected as a 2020 Truman Governance Fellow
Gale Sinatra
Received the 2020 AERA Division C Sylvia Scribner Award
Faculty
Award
Estela Bensimon
ASHE Leadership Award
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk
AERA Open Outstanding Reviewer
Shaun R. Harper
American Council on Education (ACE) Reginald Wilson Leadership Award National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) – Bobby E. Leach Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award
Guilbert Hentschke
USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award
Don Hossler
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Award for Best Research Presentation
Adrianna Kezar
Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award
Jerome Lucido
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Award for Best Research Presentation
Tatiana Melguizo
National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Developmental Mathematics
Morgan Polikoff
AERA Open Outstanding Reviewer USC Mentoring Award
John Brooks Slaughter
USC Presidential Medallion
William Tierney
ASHE Howard E. Bowen Award Fernand Braudel Fellowship
Faculty
Award
Stephen Aguilar
Top Paper Award, AERA’s Media, Culture, and Learning SIG
Estela Bensimon
Appointed to the Education Commission of the States by Governor Brown AERA Division J Research Award Beacon of Light Award from the Campaign for College Opportunity
Patricia Burch
Fulbright Scholar USC Mentoring Award
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk
National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Zoe Corwin
Top Paper Award, AERA’s Media, Culture, and Learning SIG
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Spencer Foundation Midcareer Award
Julie Marsh
Publication of the Year, AERA Districts in Research and Reform SIG Haynes Foundation Faculty Fellowship USC Mentoring Award