{"id":78,"date":"2018-09-20T23:14:03","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T23:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cej\/?page_id=78"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:14:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:14:52","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cej\/cej-home\/people\/","title":{"rendered":"Affiliate Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Wayne Au<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Interim Dean and Professor, Educational Studies
\nUniversity of Washington, Bothell<\/h3>\n

\"wayneI am a committed scholar-activist, parent, and public intellectual who works to engage the public in debates about the racial, cultural, and class politics of public education policy and practice – especially regarding the injustices neoliberal, market reforms. I seek to simultaneously challenge the settler-colonialist, white supremacist, free-market, and patriarchal foundations of public education and radically democratize classrooms and school so that they can become spaces of liberatory practices and sites for building critical, transformative consciousness. My curriculum and pedagogy are grounded in a shared commitment to critique, a sharpening of political understanding, our potential for transformational justice, and the possibility of education for healing historical and cultural trauma.
\nEditor for the social justice teaching magazine and publisher, Rethinking Schools – www.rethinkingschools.org<\/a>
\nCo-editor, Teaching for Black Lives – https:\/\/www.rethinkingschools.org\/books\/title\/teaching-for-black-lives<\/a><\/p>\n

Edmundo M. Aguilar<\/h2>\n

Assistant Teaching Professor, Education, Community, and Organizations, College of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"edmundoMy work is rooted in collective liberation\u2014unequivocally and unapologetically. The intersectional teachings and moments of awakening that inspire me, and ultimately changed my life, are drawn from the Third World feminist movement. As the son of Mexican (im)migrants, decolonial Chicana feminism shapes my community-based scholarship and pedagogy, aimed at challenging systems of oppression rooted in settler colonialism. I approach this culturally responsive and sustaining work as a lifelong commitment to those impacted by injustice. Through digital media, such as documentary film, I counter hegemonic narratives that dehumanize and suppress resistance. This method of storytelling fosters healing, critical consciousness, and transformative change.<\/p>\n

Megan Bang<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Professor, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University<\/h3>\n

\"meganMy work seeks to dream, co-design, and nurture educational spaces that contribute to just, sustainable, and culturally thriving communities. This takes on many forms but I am especially interested in examining the epistemic, ontological, and axiological dimensions of learning environments in order transform historically accumulating inequities – especially those born of settler colonialism – and make educational spaces that cultivate resurgence. I do this in part by studying culture, learning, and development broadly with a specific focus on the complexities and possibilities in navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing transformative learning environments.
\nBang, M., & McDaid-Morgan, N. (accepted). Towards socio-ecological decision making as central to science education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
\nBang, M., West, B., Hardison-Stevens, D. & Barajas, F. (accepted). Transforming History: Developing Teacher Education That Contributes to Thriving Native Communities. Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color.
\nBang, M., Marin, A., & Medin, D. (2018). If Indigenous Peoples Stand with the Sciences, Will Scientists Stand with Us?. Daedalus, 147(2), 148-159.<\/p>\n

Filiberto Barajas<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Associate Professor and Director, Indigenous Education Initiatives
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"filibertoI immigrated from M\u00e9xico to the United States (Boyle Heights) during the 1980s. I am of P’urh\u00e9pecha lineage with relationship to lands and waters in the states of Jalisco and Michoac\u00e1n. I am also a former Diversity in Mathematics Education (DiME) NSF Fellow and earned a doctoral degree in Education from UCLA. I serve as an Associate Professor (Curriculum and Instruction\/Learning Sciences and Human Development) in the College of Education at the University of Washington Seattle and as Director of Indigenous Education Initiatives and the Native Education Certificate Program. In collaboration with youth, families, teachers, community members and other scholars I intervene in Indigenous erasure by living Indigenous resurgence in my everyday life. A great deal of the work I engage with examines the realities of teaching and learning mathematics in schools serving predominantly African American, Latinx, Native American\/Indigenous, poor\/working-class, and immigrant youth. Central to this work is privileging youth\/family experience, youth\/family knowledge, cultural knowledge and culturally embedded forms of knowing. I contend that these forms of knowing offer both practical and theoretical insights on how race, culture, language, gender, class are intimately connected to the ways in which youth\/families come to participate in mathematics learning. JUCHARI UINAPEKUA!
\nBarajas-L\u00f3pez, F., & Bang, M. (2018). Indigenous Making and Sharing: Claywork in an Indigenous STEAM Program. Equity & Excellence in Education<\/em>, 51<\/em>(1), 7-20.
\nIshimaru, A. M., Barajas-L\u00f3pez, F., & Bang, M. (2015). Centering family knowledge to develop children\u2019s empowered mathematics identities. Journal of Family Diversity in Education<\/em>, 1<\/em>(4), 1-21.
\nBarajas-L\u00f3pez, F., & Ishimaru, A. M. (2016). \u201cDarles el lugar\u201d A Place for Nondominant Family Knowing in Educational Equity. Urban Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Maggie Beneke<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Associate Professor, College of Education
\nAffiliate Faculty, Disability Studies
\nUniversity of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"\"
\nIn solidarity with dis\/ability justice communities, my scholarship is concerned with transforming deficit discourses surrounding young children\u2019s identities and competencies, specifically young children of Color with dis\/abilities. I come to this work as a white, en\/abled, cis-hetero woman, and strive to divest myself from interlocking systems of power which allow me access to unearned advantage. Through critical, sociocultural analyses, I focus on how early educators, young children, and
\nfamilies resist oppressive notions of \u201cnormalcy\u201d through their daily interactions.
\nRecent publications:
\nBeneke, M. R., & Cheatham, G. A. (2019). Race talk in preschool classrooms: Academic readiness and participation during shared-book reading. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy<\/em>, 19<\/em>(1), 107-133.
\nBeneke, M. R., Park, C. C., & Taitingfong, J. (2019). An inclusive, anti-bias framework for teaching and learning about race with young children. Young Exceptional Children<\/em>, 22<\/em>(2), 74-86.
\nBeneke, M. R., Newton, J. R., Vinh, M., Blanchard, S. B., & Kemp, P. (2019). Practicing inclusion, doing justice: Disability, identity, and belonging in early childhood. Zero to Three, 39<\/em>(3), 26-34.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jondou Chen <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Associate Teaching Professor
\nEducation, Community, and Organizations
\nLearning Sciences and Human Development
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

I\u2019m a random neighborhood Asian uncle. I\u2019m a Soufend community gardener and griller who loves stories and all the elders and dreamers who care for them. My family has always called the Pacific home and especially Taiwan, where people still pray at the raised roots of mangrove trees and light incense in alleyway temples. I\u2019m always game to bring the generations together to pass around stories, to craft literally or metaphorically, and to imagine what delicious sustenance is yet to come.<\/p>\n

Anthony Craig<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Professor of Practice and Director, Leadership for Learning Program
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"anthonyMy work as an educator has been focused on reimagining formal education systems to truly reflect the communities they serve. The central idea in these endeavors has been about honoring the cultures of students and families in our schools. As a member of the Yakama Nation and living in the community of the Tulalip Tribes, I have found the cultural strengths in communities to be the most important resources for our systems. Extending beyond my own Indigenous communities, inherent in every community, we find incredible strengths. To realize educational justice, we will value these teachings and use them to imagine new possibilities and develop new practices and systems. Every aspect of learning and education is made stronger and more sustainable when we value the knowledge and ways of being in the communities we serve. Understanding how to leverage these strengths in the day-to-day processes of formal systems is an incredible opportunity to achieve justice.
\nCraig, Anthony. (In Press). Transforming Teaching and Learning Through Indigenous Strengths and Ways of Knowing. In M. Jacob (Ed.) On Indian Ground: A Return of Indigenous Knowledge\u2014Generating Hope, Leadership and Sovereignty through Education, Northwest Volume. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
\nCraig, Anthony. (2014). Classroom Teachers and Cultural Guides: Collaborating to Transform Teaching and Learning Through the Use of Traditional Tribal Knowledge. Anthony Craig. In P. McCardle & V. Berninger. (Eds.). Narrowing the Achievement Gap for Native American Students: Paying the Educational Debt. New York: Routledge.<\/p>\n

Tomas de Rezende Rocha<\/b><\/h2>\n

Assistant Professor, Social & Cultural Foundations, College of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"thomasI study education through a philosophical lens, often by asking how ethical and political ideals\u2014justice, solidarity, flourishing\u2014collide with the everyday practices, structures, and contradictions of educational life. My research is animated by questions of educational justice and epistemic equity, particularly in relation to teacher strikes, contemplative practice, climate change education, and qualitative inquiry. I am continuously fascinated by how educators and students navigate systems they are also seeking to transform.<\/p>\n

Much of my current work explores the ethical dimensions of academic labor, the responsibilities of educational researchers, and the harm that climate change exerts on our educational norms and practices. I am currently teaching and writing on the ethics of resistance in teacher unionism and teacher strikes, the role of Latin American testimonio<\/i> in educational research, and the cultivation of intellectual and character virtues in the face of ecological collapse. I am co-editor of Teachers and Philosophy: Essay from the Contact Zone<\/i> (SUNY Press, 2025), a project that invited pairs of education practitioners and philosophers of education to co-author essays inspired by Mary Louise Pratt\u2019s idea of the \u201ccontact zone.\u201d I also serve as associate editor of L\u00c1PIZ<\/i>, the journal of the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society. Within the College of Education, I mentor doctoral students in educational philosophy and use my position on the UW Faculty Senate to advocate for marginalized students, faculty, and staff in our scholarly community.<\/p>\n

Emma Elliott<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Assistant Professor
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"emma
\nI am from Cowichan Tribes on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. My great-grandparents were Abraham and Ellen Johnny, Charlie Rice and Hilda Wesley Bob, Joseph Peters and Mary Jane Wise, and John and Emma Elliott.
\nI am an assistant professor in the department of Learning Sciences and Human Development. Much of my work centers on understanding the influence of historical, cultural, social, and political factors in relation to Indigenous health and wellbeing, and in particular seeks to understand the meanings of and explanations for Indigenous suicidal behavior. My work has expanded to consider how Indigenous and land-based programming that seeks to restore relationships to people, places, and practices
\nmay be an effective response to educational and mental health inequities. My work grows from ethical frameworks generated by Indigenous and place-based knowledges and practices to create process-centered approaches that illuminate Indigenous pathways toward collective livelihood. The interdisciplinary intersections of my research include contemporary Indigenous issues; culture, learning, and human development; and trauma, prevention, and recovery.<\/p>\n

Juan Guerra<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Professor Emeritus, Department of English
\nUniversity of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"\"I am professor of English and Chair of the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington at Seattle where I teach courses on literacy, ethnography, autobiography, language variation, language policy, and composition and rhetoric. I have published a number of essays that explore the concept of writing across difference through what I describe as the critical practice of transcultural repositionin<\/em>g. In a recent book, Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities<\/em>, I discuss a set of rhetorical and discursive tools related to language, culture and identity that disenfranchised students can use to navigate and negotiate pedagogical spaces they inhabit in writing classrooms and beyond as they prepare to become citizens in the making<\/em>. I served as a senior mentor in NCTE\u2019s Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color Program for ten years and am now the program\u2019s Director.
\nRecent Publications:
\nGuerra, Juan C. & Ann Shivers-McNair. \u201cToward a New Vocabulary of Motive: Re(con)figuring Entanglement in a Translingual World.\u201d Crossing Divides:<\/em>
\nExploring Translingual Writing Pedagogies and Programs<\/em>. Eds. Bruce Horner & Laura Tetreault. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2017. 19-30.
\nBawarshi, Anis, Juan C. Guerra, Bruce Horner & Min-Zhan Lu, Eds. \u201cSpecial Issue \u2013 Translingual Work in Composition.\u201d College English<\/em> 78.3 (January 2016).
\nGuerra, Juan C. Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities<\/em>. New York: Routledge\/NCTE, 2016.<\/p>\n

Dawn Hardison-Stevens<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Assistant Professor, Native American and Teacher Education, School of Education, University of Washington, Tacoma
\nProgram Manager\/Teaching Associate, Native Education Certificate Program
\nTeaching Associate, Teacher Education Program, College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle<\/h3>\n

\"DawnMy areas of expertise center on my commitment\u00a0to the development and acceleration of inclusive programs and views that prepare learners to live, learn, and strive to better understand their connections to self, family, community, culture, history, and worldviews. I have worked extensively across these areas. My grandmother\u2019s and grandfather\u2019s lineage are of the Omushkeg Cree, Ojibway, Cowlitz, and Steilacoom Tribal peoples; I am also a descendant of the\u00a0Northern\u00a0Scandinavian nations. As an enrolled member of the Medicine Creek signing and historic Steilacoom Tribe, I serve my community as a Tribal Council member.\u00a0My PK-12 experience, Teacher Education, and the Native Education Certificate Program highlights my collaborative sharing of Native\u00a0knowledges, thus acknowledging keepers of story, science, land-based understandings, social wellness, leadership, education, and being. Life\u2019s journeys create our own unique stories. My trajectory honors American Indian studies, leadership, and change, teaching and learning, and an early learning focus identifying we are educators from birth to death and beyond. My pathways uphold Indigenous representation and cultivates Native people\u2019s success advocating intergenerational knowledge applications.
\nHardison-Stevens, D. (2022). Learning with each other: A relational Indigenous leadership philosophy. In Pewewardy, C., Lees, A., and Minthorn, R. (Eds),\u00a0Unsettling Settler-Colonial Education: The transformational Indigenous praxis model\u00a0<\/em>(pp.134-146). New York. Teachers College Press.
\nConrad, J., Hardison-Stevens, D., & Wilson, L. (2021). Grandmother Cedar as Educator: Teacher learning through Native knowledges and sovereignty curriculum. American Educational Research Journal. (In review).
\nElliott-Groves, E., Hardison-Stevens, D., & Ulrich, J. (2020). Indigenous Relationality is the Heartbeat of Indigenous Existence during COVID-19 [Special issue].\u00a0Journal of Indigenous Social Development, Indigenous Communities and COVID-19: Impact and Implications,\u00a0<\/em>9(3), 158-169.
\nBang, M., West, B., Hardison-Stevens, D. & Barajas, F. (accepted). Transforming History: Developing Teacher Education That Contributes to Thriving Native Communities. Handbook of Research on Teachers of Color.<\/p>\n

Betina Hsieh<\/b><\/h2>\n

Endowed Professor of Teacher Education, College of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"betinaI am a proud second generation Asian (Taiwanese) American MotherScholar and former urban middle school teacher, who believes in the importance of educational research that is accessible to teacher education practitioners, K-12 educators, community members and families in addition to impacting the field itself. To that end, I have published in K-12 practitioner-focused journals and magazines like Educational Leadership, <\/i>the English Journal<\/i>, and Voices from the Middle,<\/i> as well as being cited in the Atlantic<\/i>. Additionally, I have given a TEDx talk, \u201cLearning from One Another: Lessons in (Educational) Excellence\u201d and appeared as a guest on multiple educational podcasts including the Black Gaze Podcast and All of the Above. My first book The Racialized Experiences of Asian American Teachers <\/i>co-authored with Dr. Jung Kim is the first comprehensive research monograph focused on the experiences of Asian American teachers using the tenets of Asian Critical Race Theory and my forthcoming edited book Moments and Movements: Counterstories for Critical Asian American+ Studies in Education<\/i> draws from scholar, educator and youth voices to center experiences doing the work of critical ethnic studies in schools and communities.<\/p>\n

Ann Ishimaru<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Professor
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"annMy research focuses on the intersection of leadership, community-school relations and equity-based systems change in P-12 education. Through community-based research, I seek to collaborate with the expertise and leadership of nondominant students, families, communities, and educators towards educational justice and community well-being. With Dr. Megan Bang, I lead the Family Leadership Design Collaborative<\/a><\/u>, a national-level participatory design-based research project that re-centers nondominant families in racial equity efforts in education. I also collaborate with Dr. Filiberto Barajas-L\u00f3pez and Dr. Min Sun in Cultivating Capacity for Racial Equity in Education, in partnership with Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Education Association. I am currently writing a book entitled, Journeying to Educational Justice: Equitable Collaborations with Families and Communities<\/em> which draws across my work, including the Equitable Parent-School Collaboration Project<\/strong><\/a> (with Dr. Joe Lott), to help researchers, practitioners, and nondominant families collaborate in codesigning educational justice in our educational systems and communities.
\nRecent articles:
\nIshimaru, A. M. (2018) “Re-imagining turnaround: families and communities leading educational justice”<\/a>, Journal of Educational Administration<\/em>, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/JEA-01-2018-0013<\/a>
\nIshimaru, A.M., Rajendran, A., Monta\u00f1o-Nolan, C. & Bang, M. (in press). Community design circles: Co-designing justice and wellbeing in family-community-research partnerships. Journal of Family Diversity in Education, 3<\/em>(2).
\nIshimaru, A.M. (2017). Ishimaru, A. M. & Takahashi, S. (2017). Disrupting racialized institutional scripts: Toward parent\u2013teacher transformative agency for educational justice.<\/a> Peabody Journal of Education<\/em>, 1-20.<\/p>\n

Joe Lott<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Associate Professor and Director of Higher Education Leadership and the Brotherhood Initiative
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"JoeMy work investigates how organizational cultures of large research universities create the conditions for disparate graduation rates between undergraduate men of color and their peers. I seek to understand how faculty, staff, students, and administrators can collaboratively work together, drawing from design-based principles, to create policies and establish practices to close the graduation gap between men of color and their peers. To that end, I co-founded the Brotherhood Initiative at the University of Washington, a research-to-practice initiative designed to increase the retention and graduation rates of undergraduate men of color by creating conditions of success through academic classes and co-curricular programming, collecting longitudinal data about their college experiences, and working with administrative leaders on campus to scale up promising principles and practices learned from the students and the various campus partners who work with them.
\nhttp:\/\/brotherhoodinitiative.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Dana Nickson<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Assistant Professor
\nEducation Policy, Organizations and Leadership
\nCollege of Education, University of Washington<\/h3>\n

\"danaMy work focuses on the relationships between Black families\u2019 physical movement and place-
\nmaking practices to their access to schools and communities that they deem to be of quality and
\naffirming to their children. There is a rich tradition of movement as a means of agency and
\nresistance in Black communities given the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness in the U.S. and the
\nplace-based nature of access to opportunity. I center Black families and students\u2019 experiences
\nand epistemologies to produce deeper understandings of structural factors shaping educational
\naccess and opportunity in demographically changing U.S. metropolitan regions.
\nNickson, D. (2021). The democratization of educational care: Spatial imaginaries, demographic
\nchange, and Black families continued educational advocacy. Equity &amp; Excellence in
\nEducation, 5(3), 303-316. doi: 10.1080\/10665684.2021.2021613
\nWilson, C., Nickson, D., Ransom, K. (2021). Spiriting urban educational justice: The leadership
\nof African American mothers organizing for increased school access and local control.
\nJournal of Educational Change. doi: 10.1007\/s10833-021-09443-1<\/p>\n

Lakeya Afolalu<\/h2>\n

Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture
\nTeaching, Learning & Curriculum<\/h3>\n

\"lakeyaI am\u00a0a creative writer, speaker, and Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture in Teaching, Learning & Curriculum. Raised between my Nigerian and African American cultures, my hybrid\u00a0identity is reflected in my\u00a0work that focuses on Black African immigrant youth. Specifically, my\u00a0research explores the role of language, literacy, including digital literacies, in Black African immigrant youth identity constructions and negotiations across school, community, and digital spaces. I pay\u00a0particular attention to the intersection of racialization and socialization processes that influence their identities.\u00a0I draw on my lived experiences, the wisdom of my former middle school students, and the arts to inform my creative approach to shifting static ideas about race,\u00a0immigration, language, literacy, and identity. Throughout my career, I have partnered with youth, families, leaders, and organizations to enhance educational justice. My academic scholarship has\u00a0appeared in the\u00a0Journal of Literacy of Research<\/em>,\u00a0Teachers<\/em>\u00a0College Record<\/em>, and the\u00a0Journal of Research in Childhood Education<\/em>. My public scholarship has been featured on various formats, including\u00a0TEDx<\/em>,\u00a0ESSENCE Magazine<\/em>,\u00a0NPR Radio<\/em>,\u00a0ZORA,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SXSW.<\/p>\n

Recent Publications:<\/h4>\n