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News Briefs

Rina Madhani (center) shares books from her Start Lighthouse nonprofit with children in the Bronx.

Library of Congress Literacy Awards Honor Penn GSE–Related Initiatives

The 2025 Library of Congress Literacy Awards recognized two Penn GSE–affiliated organizations for their outstanding contributions to advancing literacy. The Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP), a site of the National Writing Project housed at Penn GSE, received a $10,000 Successful Practice Award for its nearly four decades of innovative literacy promotion and educator collaboration. Start Lighthouse, a New York–based nonprofit founded by alum Rina Madhani, GED’19, was named an Emerging Strategies Honoree and awarded $5,000 for transforming underutilized library spaces in the South Bronx into vibrant literacy hubs centered on family reading and community engagement. Both initiatives were celebrated at a recognition event and symposium hosted by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in October.

Building BabyGPTs

Penn GSE doctoral student Luis Morales-Navarro and the Franklin Institute partnered this summer to help high school students become creators of artificial intelligence through the “Building babyGPTs” workshop. Guided by Yasmin Kafai, the Lori and Michael Milken President’s Distinguished Professor at Penn GSE, the program introduced teens to the process of building small-scale generative language models while examining questions of ethics, authorship, and bias.

Over five days, students designed their own models, reflected on the implications of their data choices, and explored how AI can both help and harm communities. The workshop, part of the Franklin Institute’s STEM Scholars program, included mentorship from Penn undergraduate researchers and encouraged participants to see AI as a tool that can be shaped responsibly. Morales-Navarro said the goal was to help young people understand how AI works, how it is created, and how they can influence its future.

“We designed activities so that students are reflecting on authorship, copyright, and representation before they even train their models,” he said. “It’s about recognizing that decisions you make during data collection or model design will shape the outputs—and the potential impact on others.”

High school students in one of the hands-on exercises during the babyGPT workshop at the Franklin Institute.

High school students participating in BabyGPT workshop

Catalyst @ Penn GSE Secures Backing for AI Literacy

The School’s center for global education innovation won major grants to further its work in generative AI in schools and classrooms. Catalyst received $1 million from Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Alphabet, to expand the Pioneering AI in School Systems (PASS) program—a professional development initiative designed to build AI literacy across all levels of a school system—to five additional districts across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. They also earned an AI for Education Infrastructure Grant from the Gates Foundation with their partner, the nonprofit Digital Promise. This four-year, $400,000 grant leverages the work Catalyst is already doing with its Catapult virtual accelerator and the Catalyst Innovation Summit.

Catalyst’s Betty Chandy, GED’05, GRD’13, leads a PASS program workshop for Philadelphia teachers.

Truth Mjumbe Launches AI-Powered Tool to Preserve Memory and Dignity

Truth Mjumbe standing in front of Penn GSE building

Truth Mjumbe, a second-year student in Penn GSE’s Professional Counseling program, has developed Recall Aid, an AI-powered memory support platform designed to help people reconnect with their memories and preserve their personal stories.

Inspired by his own experience with epilepsy, his grandfather’s dementia, and his father’s civil rights preservation work, Mjumbe created Recall Aid to combine technology, therapy, and cultural relevance. The tool uses cue-based prompts and personalized storytelling to support memory recall, particularly among older Black adults who are disproportionately affected by dementia.

“Memory isn’t just about the past. It’s about connection, dignity, and the ability to share who you are,” Mjumbe said. “I wanted to create something that could make those connections vivid and personal, while also being safe and accessible.”

Supported by funding from Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase, Recall Aid has been piloted in collaboration with the Movement, Memory, and Justice Project and community partners in Alabama and South Carolina. Mjumbe credits Catalyst @ Penn GSE’s Catapult program and his counseling fieldwork for helping him refine the platform, which officially launched this month.

Maya Kaul’s Award-Winning Dissertation

Maya Kaul, GR’24, has been named the winner of the 2025 Jolley Bruce Christman and Steven S. Goldberg Annual Award for Best Dissertation in Urban Education, the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from AERA Division L (Educational Policy and Politics), and the 2025 James D. Anderson Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Her dissertation, “The Making of a Professional: Institutional Logics of Teacher Education and Teacher Professional Identity Formation,” examines how reform movements and institutional forces shape teacher education programs and influence teachers’ professional identities. Kaul’s research has been praised by former Penn GSE dean Pam Grossman for its rigor and insight into the organizational dynamics that define teacher education.

Philly High Schoolers Imagine Their Futures Through the Academy at Penn

three diverse high school students gathered around a clear plastic container

Students from the Academy at Penn visit Penn Vet.

The Academy at Penn—a five-year program partnership between Penn GSE, national nonprofit Foundations, Inc., the School District of Philadelphia, and the Consortium for Policy Research in Education—launched this summer with an intensive four-week summer institute for 50 students from the School of the Future and Horace Howard Furness High School.

Designed with a high staff-to-student ratio, the program applies a holistic structure that weaves together academic preparation, career exploration, and personal growth—emphasizing well-being while identifying and strengthening students’ existing skill sets. At the summer institute at Penn GSE, students took academic courses, explored careers, and participated in mentoring sessions while earning stipends.

One student called the program “10 out of 10!” in The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Academy at Penn Executive Director Rich Mitchell called the program’s comprehensive approach “a game changer” for students often overlooked by traditional systems.

The Academy is continuing during the school year with Saturday sessions and in-school mentoring focused on academic growth, confidence building, and long-term success. New cohorts of students will be added over the next four summers.

Four Education Innovators Honored with the 2025 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education

group photo of McGraw Center Executive Director John Silvanus Wilson, Jr., Robert McGraw, Harold McGraw III, WG'76, Frederic Bertley, Cathy N. Davidson, Joe Wolf, Dean Katharine Strunk, and Vice Dean of Innovative Programs and Partnerships L. Michael Golden, GRD'07.

(From left) McGraw Center Executive Director John Silvanus Wilson, Jr., Robert McGraw, Harold McGraw III, WG’76, Frederic Bertley, Cathy N. Davidson, Joe Wolf, Dean Katharine Strunk, and Vice Dean of Innovative Programs and Partnerships L. Michael Golden, GRD’07.

Four visionary leaders were celebrated at the Morgan Library in New York as recipients of the 2025 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education, one of the field’s most prestigious honors.

Presented by the McGraw Family Foundation in collaboration with Penn GSE, this year’s awards recognized Rapelang Rabana and Joe Wolf, Cathy N. Davidson, and Frederic Bertley for their pioneering contributions that have advanced learning opportunities and impacted countless lives. Each honoree received a $50,000 prize and the McGraw Prize sculpture during a ceremony on November 13.

Rabana and Wolf, co-CEOs of Imagine Worldwide, won the PreK–12 Education Prize for their solar-powered, offline tablets that deliver personalized learning to Africa’s most marginalized children.
Davidson, a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY), earned the Higher Education Prize for her work translating research into action and helping institutions evolve to meet the needs of all students.
Bertley, president and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, Ohio, was recognized with the Lifelong Learning Prize for transforming a regional science museum into a globally recognized leader in STEM education.

Learn more about these extraordinary educators: penng.se/mcgraw25

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT

From West Philly to West Africa

Charles Washington and Ann Tiao in front of the mausoleum where Nkrumah and his wife were laid to rest

(Top) Tiao and Washington in front of the mausoleum where Nkrumah and his wife were laid to rest. (Bottom) A bust of Nkrumah on display at the park. Photos courtesy of Charles Washington.

Kwame Nkrumah, GED’43, GR’44, was the first president of an independent Ghana, founding member of the Organization of African Unity, and a Penn GSE alum. During their trip to Accra this summer with the Philadelphia Boys Choir, Penn GSE Academic Technology Manager Charles Washington and Adjunct Professor Ann Tiao, GR’06, toured the park named in his honor and located on the site where Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence in 1957.

Two New Dean’s Strategic Priority Grants Support Global Efforts

Charlotte Jacobs

Last year, the Dean’s Office announced seed grants for research that advances the priorities of Together for Good, Penn GSE’s strategic vision, and encourages cross-program collaboration for faculty.

The first two recipients are “Identifying the Educational and Developmental Needs of Adolescent Girls of Color: A Transnational Project in the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil” and “Preparing English Language Educators in the Age of AI: An International Capacity-Building Initiative.”

Gerald Campano

The first initiative, a partnership between Adjunct Assistant Professor Charlotte Jacobs, GR’17, and Professor Gerald Campano, aims to create a youth-driven, transnational research-practice partnership focused on supporting the positive development of adolescent girls of color in educational settings. Using Youth Participatory Action Research methods, students will investigate and address issues shaping their lives, contributing to community-based solutions and institutional change.

Anne Pomerantz

The latter is a project of Professor of Practice Anne Pomerantz, GED’98, GR’01, along with Lecturer of Educational Practice Catherine Box and Catalyst Director of Online Learning Betty Chandy, GED’05, GRD’13. In collaboration with the Instituto Cultural Argentino Norteamericano (ICANA) and the Ministry of Education for the city of Buenos Aires, the team will design, implement, and evaluate a new professional development program for English teachers in Argentina. The initiative responds to the urgent need for research that considers how emerging technologies, like AI, are shaping language education in Latin America, as well as the need for professional development opportunities that respond to teachers’ perspectives, lived experiences, and aspirations.

Amrit Thapa Studies Impact of Floods, Drought, Extreme Heat on Education

A flooded dirt road in Kenya.

Senior Lecturer Amrit Thapa of Penn GSE’s International Educational Development Program received his third Penn Global Research and Engagement Grant to support research on how climate hazards affect learning in Sub-Saharan Africa.

His project, “Climatic Hazards, Schooling, and Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa,” examines the impacts of floods, drought, and extreme heat on children’s education in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Benin, Côte D’Ivoire, and Ghana. Working with collaborators from Penn GSE and Penn’s departments of sociology and economics, Thapa is using UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys data to analyze how climate extremes influence schooling and whether effects differ across populations. This work builds on Thapa’s earlier Penn Global–supported work on the effects of floods in rural India on children’s learning.

“We found out that the floods do affect children’s learning, and it affected those children that were marginalized much more than other kids,” he said of that research, which resulted in papers in RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences and The Economics of Education Review.

Last year, Thapa’s Penn Global Research and Engagement Grant supported his work on education and economic development in Nepal—work that is meant to inform sustainable development efforts.

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