Assistant Professor Sarah Gallo
Sarah Gallo, assistant professor of teaching and learning, is a U.S. Fulbright Fellow. She is one of three Ohio State professors awarded this year’s prestigious award.
The U.S. Fulbright Scholars Program offers grants to U.S. faculty and professionals for conducting research and lectures in international settings.
“It is very exciting to see one of our young, outstanding faculty members recognized as a Fulbright Scholar,” said Sandra A. Stroot, interim chair of EHE’s Department of Teaching and Learning. “Dr. Gallo’s work addresses an important area of need in literature and her efforts will help us understand this population of children, their families and their communities.”
With the award, Gallo will expand her current US-based research in Puebla, Mexico. During the project, which begins in August, she will study how deportation affects the educational futures children from Mexican-origin families who, though often US citizens, move to Mexico to remain with their parents.
The goal of Gallo’s research is to better inform educational policies and practices in the United States and Mexico so students get the resources that will translate to academic success on either side of the border.
“This is a perfect opportunity for me to go where families go, to observe students in the classroom and how they will fare in Mexican schools,” Gallo said.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be supported in research that I think is important and to work with others who have similar interests.”
During her project, Gallo will collaborate with scholars at Universidad de Monterrey who have studied return migration to Mexico and the educational consequences for more than a decade.
Her ethnographic research in Puebla also will investigate the possibilities and challenges teachers and students in Mexico face, as many of the students have had more than half of their schooling careers in the United States.
Gallo emphasized the importance that the pedagogical and policy perspectives of these educational development issues be heard.
“Remaining silent, especially in schools, is not good,” she said. “The students are looking for someone to be supportive and understanding but teachers often don’t know how they can be effective. We need to be having this conversation and thinking about how we prepare educators and support students.”
Gallo is the eighth faculty member from the College of Education and Human Ecology in the past 10 years to be win a grant from the U.S. Fulbright Scholars Program.
Faculty Laura Justice, Leslie Moore, Richard Lomax, Ann O’Connell and Mark Faila (emeritus) are among the college’s Fulbright winners.
