USC Rossier faculty to present on science deniers, LGBTQ equity at 2015 AERA conference

Los Angeles­­—Dozens of Rossier faculty and graduate students are slated to attend the upcoming annual conference of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), including five of the school’s AERA Fellows. The conference takes place April 16–20 in Chicago.

AERA Fellow William G. Tierney will be part of the panel “Toward Social Justice for LGBTQ Students: A Multi-method Discussion about Pressing Issues,” on Friday, April 17. Then on Sunday, April 19, he will chair a discussion on “LGBTQ Issues in Education: Advancing a Research Agenda.” Tierney is USC Rossier’s associate dean for research and faculty affairs, University Professor and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education and also co-directs the Pullias Center for Higher Education. He served as president of AERA in 2012–­13.

Gale Sinatra, USC Rossier professor of education and psychology and AERA Fellow, will present “‘I am not a scientist, but. . . ’: Anti-intellectualism and Science Denial as Social Justice Issues” as a member of a panel on Monday, April 20. Sinatra is an internationally recognized expert on climate science education, evolution education and the public understanding of science. The panel will be discussing how “sound, valid and trustworthy research design is under siege” in science education and other disciplines.

Sinatra and Tierney’s research answers AERA President Joyce E. King’s call “to apply principles and evidence from social science research and theorizing to the problems of injustice.” Other Rossier presentations build on the theme of the conference, “Toward Justice: Culture, Language and Heritage in Education Research and Praxis,” including Alicia C. Dowd’s talk on Friday April 17, about “Coping, Care and Legitimate Authority in Racial Equity Work” as part of the panel “Compassion as We Diversify Higher Education!?” Dowd is associate professor of education at USC Rossier and co-director of the school’s Center for Urban Education (CUE).

Dowd and CUE co-director Estela Mara Bensimon, who is also an AERA Fellow, will be signing copies of their new book, Engaging the “Race Question”: Accountability and Equity in U.S. Higher Education (Teachers College Press 2015) on Saturday, April 18, from 10 to 10:30 a.m. at the River Exhibition Hall on the first floor of the Sheraton Chicago.

Adrianna Kezar, who is among the 23 new AERA Fellows named this year, will present on “Achieving Scale for STEM Reform: How Undergraduate Faculty STEM Networks Shape Individual and Institutional Outcomes.” Her talk takes place April 17 and builds on her three-year National Science Foundation–funded project aimed at reforming STEM education. Kezar is professor of education at USC Rossier and co-directs the Pullias Center.

Also honored at this year’s AERA conference is Brendesha Tynes, associate professor of education and psychology, who will receive the 2015 Early Career Award, which is among the most significant awards given to education scholars and acknowledges exceptional bodies of work conducted in the first 10 years of a career. AERA’s Early Career Award recognizes Tynes’ research on the cultural assets youth possess that may buffer them against the negative outcomes typically associated with race-related cyberbullying. Tynes has also received the Spencer Foundation’s Midcareer Award.

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, associate professor of education and psychology, was recipient of the Early Career Award last year and will deliver the Early Career Award Lecture on Sunday, April 19. Immordino-Yang, an affective neuroscientist, is currently working on a National Science Foundation–supported longitudinal study on psychosocial influences on learning in adolescents. At the conference, Immordino-Yang will also receive the 2015 Early Career Impact Award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.