College’s faculty among 18 AERA Fellows recognized this year
For the second consecutive year, the College of Education and Human Ecology will receive the distinct honor of having two scholars inducted as Fellows into the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
This year, Anne-Marie Núñez and Lori Patton Davis, both professors of higher education and student affairs in the college, are being inducted at the annual association conference on April 22 in San Diego.
Only 18 professors were chosen as AERA Fellows this year from universities around the world. Fellows are nominated by their peers, selected by the Fellows Committee and approved by the AERA Council, the association’s elected governing body.
“We appreciate that AERA recognizes the caliber of these two faculty members, who are known for innovative research approaches that illuminate best practices in supporting underserved students and faculty in higher education,” said Don Pope-Davis, dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology.
“Most recently, they were both recognized in this year’s Stanford Elsevier Scholar Index, which ranks the top 2% of the most-cited researchers in the world. Because of them and the other faculty in our Higher Education and Student Affairs program, it is ranked No. 6 in the nation for 2023 by U.S. News and World Report,” he said.
Expanding educational opportunities, Hispanic-serving institutions and STEM equity
Anne-Marie Núñez has been recognized as one of the leading scholars in research that interrogates the systems and institutional factors that support postsecondary education opportunities for Latinx and other minoritized students.
Her first academic appointment was, notably, at the University of Texas at San Antonio – the second largest Hispanic-serving institution in the country. She joined Ohio State in 2016.
In just over 15 years, Núñez has accomplished more than what many scholars aspire to in an entire career. Her award-winning scholarship employs sociological approaches to advance equitable postsecondary educational opportunities for historically underserved groups in higher education. She focuses on theory, practice and federal policy at the highest levels.
Three of her areas of specialization are:
- Postsecondary trajectories of Latinx, first-generation, migrant and English Learner students
- Institutional diversity in the United States, including the role of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) in promoting college opportunities
- Building inclusive and equitable environments in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including at HSIs
As a few examples of her groundbreaking work, Núñez co-authored “Exploring what leads high school students to enroll in Hispanic-Serving Institutions: A multilevel analysis” in 2011. The research was the first ever published about Hispanic-serving institutions as organizations in AERA’s high-impact American Educational Research Journal.
Núñez’ 2015 co-edited book, Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Advancing Research and Transformative Practice, received an International Latino Book Award from Latino Literacy Now, a project of the American Library Association. The book was recognized as the first to focus on HSIs, filling a critical gap in understanding their role in the American higher education system.
In addition, she led the development of the first typology of HSIs (2016) in the top-tier Journal of Higher Education. The 2018 Science and Engineering Indicators, the biannual report of the National Science Foundation on national STEM characteristics, cited this HSI typology to illustrate the diversity and role of HSIs in contributing to the science workforce.
In 2019, Núñez and her co-authors presented a novel approach to broaden participation by minoritized students in geosciences, one of the least diverse fields in the nation. “Applying an intersectionality lens to expand equity in the geosciences” currently tops the list of most-read articles in the Journal of Geosciences Education.
As is her practice of nurturing emerging scholars, Núñez engaged two of her former Ohio State University doctoral students as this article’s co-authors. Jessica Rivera, PhD, a Latinx scholar, is now a postdoctoral scholar with Núñez. Tyler Hallmark, PhD, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, now coordinates STEM graduate initiatives for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
In 2019, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issued Minority Serving Institutions: America's Underutilized Resource for Strengthening the STEM Workforce. Núñez served on the committee that co-authored and disseminated the report, which documents the critical contributions that minority-serving institutions and Hispanic-serving institutions make to graduating racially minoritized students in STEM fields.
Núñez has collaborated on nearly $15 million in grants from the National Science Foundation and other agencies to build equitable environments in geosciences and computing, raise Latinx attainment in STEM fields and strengthen STEM capacity at HSIs.
Among these projects, she works with the University of Texas El Paso-led Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, known as CAHSI. With a network of more than 40 HSIs, nonprofit organizations and industry partners such as Google, the alliance strengthens its computing departments to support Latinx and other minoritized undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in growing their research skills and capacity.
The first Black woman to chair Ohio State’s Department of Educational Studies
During the course of her career, Lori Patton Davis has become one of the most influential scholars in the field of higher education. She joined the college in 2019, recruited for her extensive scholarship, as well as her leadership acumen, to chair the college’s Department of Educational Studies — the first Black woman lead in this role.
Her research tackles timely and relevant issues and has been cited more than 11,000 times. She boldly addresses race and racism in higher education using critical race theory. Her 2016 article Disrupting Postsecondary Prose: Toward a Critical Race Theory of Higher Education is among the most read in the journal Urban Education.
Her scholarship is unapologetically intersectional and widely read. Her co-authored article Un/Doing Intersectionality through Higher Education Research is currently the most cited in The Journal of Higher Education.
She also studies disparities facing Black women and girls in education, college student development and the little-studied area of the impact of multicultural centers on campus. Early in her career, she produced the first book examining cultural centers in higher education.
From the time she entered the professoriate, Patton Davis began receiving awards for her scholarship, to date over two dozen. She has been honored multiple times by ACPA ̶ College Student Educators, International, most recently with the organization’s Senior Scholar Award and its Contribution to Knowledge Award, both in 2020.
NASPA - Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education made an engaging video about her achievements, including her acceptance speech, when it honored her in 2020 with its George D. Kuh Outstanding Contribution to Literature and Research Award.
She has been recognized year after year in Education Week’s RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings.
In 2021, Patton Davis reached a pinnacle of success when she was chosen to deliver the esteemed annual Brown Lecture for AERA, making her the 18th scholar to be so invited in as many years and the first from Ohio State.
Later this year, the National Academy of Education will induct her into its exclusive ranks.
These honors are all tendered not only in recognition of Patton Davis’ scholarship, but also for her astute leadership and unwavering service to the field. For instance, she served as president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the first Black woman to lead and breathe new energy into the organization.
Members of ACPA elected her as the inaugural director of Equity and Inclusion on its national governing board.
She has played multiple roles in AERA, most recently as the 2020-2021 conference program co-chair, a labor-intensive position.
Her book, Student Development in College, co-authored with college colleague Stephen John Quaye, is a bestseller in its category and has shifted how student development theory is taught in higher education and student affairs programs, including at Ohio State.
Beyond vitae basics, Patton Davis is a game-changer because she focuses her research on issues affecting the life success of Black women and girls. Her recent book with colleagues, Investing in the Educational Success of Black Women and Girls, challenges educators, policymakers and researchers to center Black women and girls in the curriculum, policy and research.
Additional efforts include a 2016 Special Issue of the Journal of Negro Education titled Why We Can’t Wait: (Re)Examining the Opportunities and Challenges for Black Women and Girls in Education, as well as a 2017 co-edited book with Routledge, Critical Perspectives on Black Women and College Success.
Her February 2022 article with colleagues again entered uncharted territory, taking us “Toward Understanding COVID-19’s Economic Impact on Black Women in U.S. Higher Education,” which appeared in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice and highlights how and to what extent COVID exacerbated Black women’s economic situations. These efforts illustrate how Patton Davis takes up the challenge of research that is relevant not just to academia, but also to the broader society.
Patton Davis is frequently sought as an expert by the media such as National Public Radio, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Diverse Issues in Higher Education and Inside Higher Education.
With their induction as Fellows, Núñez and Patton Davis join professors Jerome V. D’Agostino and James L. Moore III, who were inducted as AERA Fellows last year.
Professor Eric Anderman is currently a Fellow. A number of the college’s now-retired faculty are Fellows as well, including David M. Bloome, Anita Woolfolk Hoy and Wayne Hoy.
