Faculty News

Sigal Ben-Porath gave an invited talk on “The Future of Truth” at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Sade Bonilla received a grant from the Neubauer Family Foundation to evaluate Penn GSE’s Algebra 1 Fellowship partnership. She also received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to study the causal effects of ethnic studies on civic participation and postsecondary attainment, and a grant from the Lumina Foundation to examine workforce education and career pathway investments in community colleges. Bonilla co-authored a chapter, “Career and Technical Education: History, Theory, Evidence, and the Path Ahead,” in The Handbook of Education Policy Research, 2nd Edition, and has two forthcoming articles in Education Finance and Policy.

A. Brooks Bowden received a grant from the Neubauer Family Foundation for “Economic Value and Return on Investment: 9th Grade On-Track Strategy.” She was honored with the Penn GSE Faculty Recognition of Service Award, and co-authored a book chapter, “Examining costs: Designs and strategies and analysis,” in The Evaluation Handbook: An Evaluator’s Companion.

Bruce Campbell, Jr. was part of a panel on the cultural, historical, and social significance of To Kill a Child of Troubled Times at Anthony Tidd’s Quite Sane Returns: Philly Homecoming and Release event, presented by Painted Bride Art Center Jazz at the Fallser Club and co-curated by J. Michael Harrison of WRTI public radio.

Bodong Chen received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “InkSpire: Generative AI for Reading in Science Disciplines.” He also published “Seeing our world through data: Sixth graders integrating data investigations in collaborative knowledge building” in Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education and “Pedagogical biases in AI-powered educational tools: The case of lesson plan generators” in Social Innovations Journal.

María Cioè-Peña spoke at the Educators of Color Conference and then traveled with a research team to Norway and Germany to participate in an international research collaborative and give an invited talk at Heidelberg University.

Vivian Gadsden was elected vice president of the National Academy of Education, succeeding former Penn GSE dean Pam Grossman in the role.

L. Michael Golden delivered keynotes at the Kaizenvest & INSEAD Education Symposium and EdTech Asia Summit in Singapore and at the Global Impact Forum in Pittsburgh. Additionally, he and Tim Foxx received a $225,000 Wallace Foundation grant to continue the Center for School Study Councils’ work as the technical assistance provider for the Professional Learning Communities for District School Leaders for the Equity-Centered Pipeline Initiative. This phase focuses on strengthening principals as building-level leaders across the eight Wallace-targeted district grantees.

Eric Hartman has published multiple recent op/eds including “Pa. is better off when Americans and Chinese learn, trade, research, and innovate together” in The Philadelphia Inquirer and “What’s so conservative about civics, anyway?” in Inside Higher Ed.

Zachary Herrmann earned a Wharton Teaching Excellence award for his course “Negotiations.” He was also selected to present on his Penn GSE Project-Based Learning for Global Climate Justice initiative at the Stanford Teacher Education Program Alumni Conference.

Yasmin B. Kafai gave the keynote at the 2025 International Conference on Science Education in Taiwan.

Leland McGee served as a visiting scholar at the School of Creative Practices and Entrepreneurship (SCoPE) at Anant National University in Ahmedabad, India, and was co-principal investigator for the 2025 Indigenous Consciousness Education Research Methodology Convening.

Laura Perna was named to the inaugural class of Association for the Study of Higher Education Fellows—25 professors from across the U.S. honored for their integrity, advancement of knowledge, mentoring, and service.

Abby Reisman, Wendy Chan, and their co-authors won the American Education Research Association Social Studies Research SIG Outstanding Paper Award for “The Social Studies Discourse Instrument: Validating an Observation Tool for Classroom Discussions,” which was published in Theory & Research in Social Education. Reisman also received one of Penn GSE’s 2025 Faculty Recognition of Service Awards.

Alan Ruby published two opinion pieces in University World News.

Howard Stevenson was a 2025 Adam Corneel Major Teachers of Psychotherapy Honoree from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and McLean Hospital at Harvard University. Stevenson was also an invited distinguished speaker at the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation’s Policy for the People Health Summit for a session titled “Mental Health Deserts and the Workforce Shortage.”

Ericka Weathers was selected for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2030. She will explore a new research topic—whether institutional responses to truancy reduce inequality in educational outcomes for Black and Latinx students—over the next five years.

Karen Weaver was chosen as a topic expert for Philadelphia City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ Higher Academia Task Force. Her subcommittee topic is name, image, and likeness (NIL) and the impact on college sports and admission. Weaver also moderated two panels: one on public-private partnerships in higher ed at the P3*EDU conference at Georgia Institute of Technology and another on the changing world of college athletics at Wharton’s Sports Business Summit.

Damani White-Lewis received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for “A multi-institutional and cross-field investigation of anonymization practices in faculty hiring.” He also received a grant from Penn’s Faculty Innovation Fund for “On ‘good’ teaching: A qualitative exploration of R1 instructors’ pedagogical purposes, philosophies, and practices.” He published “Counteroffers for faculty at research universities: Who gets them, who doesn’t, and what factors produce them” in Higher Education and findings were featured in Inside Higher Ed. He was also honored with Penn GSE’s Excellence in Teaching Award.

Julie Wollman spoke about how leaders can reduce faculty stress and burnout at the Times Higher Education’s Student Success U.S. 2025 Conference in Atlanta. She also gave a peer-reviewed conference presentation and publication on “A Quantitative Ethnography on Leadership Values and Principles of Asian American Women Senior Leaders in Higher Education” at the International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography.

Jenny Zapf was invited to be a board trustee for QS ImpACT, “a global Sustainable Development Goals incubator for a better world that equips thousands of youth leaders across 101 countries with the skills to drive impact through strategic collaborations with universities, organizations, and communities.” Zapf spoke at their recent youth summit. She was also honored with one of Penn GSE’s 2025 Faculty Recognition of Service Awards.

Jonathan Zimmerman has published articles about the Trump Administration’s attacks on education in The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and other newspapers and magazines. He appeared on PBS NewsHour to discuss Prager University and its efforts to alter history instruction. He also spoke at the Steamboat Institute, a conservative think-tank where he became—according to one staffer—the first liberal Democrat to take the podium there.