Annie McClellan

Annie McClellan is a PhD student in the CREATE program within the Curriculum and Instruction department. She taught for 15 years before pursuing her doctorate, teaching English Language Arts in grades 6-12 and serving as a K-12 media specialist. She is particularly interested in researching issues surrounding teacher retention and teacher education. In what ways can technology assist teachers and make teaching a more sustainable career? How do teachers experience their workload, and how does this contribute to burnout?

Weronika Kaczmarczyk-Smith

Weronika is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in Language & Literacy. She has taught English in middle and high schools, as well as in extracurricular settings. Her research interests include language ideologies, heritage language development, and teacher education. Weronika seeks ways to incorporate multilingual ways of knowing in traditionally monolingual curricular settings to leverage students’ languages and cultures in the classroom.

Ashita Bawankule

Conference Schedule Team Lead

Ashita Bawankule is a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction (DELTA) at the College of Education at the University of Illinois. Her research interests include equity in informal STEM education, identity in computing, and family engagement. She is currently a research assistant on Connected Spaces – a makerspace-oriented project with Dr. Mike Tissenbaum. She is also a research assistant with the outreach and engagement department of Grainger School of Engineering, to engage pre-college, underrepresented community students and families in engineering education.

Blanca Bustos

Logistics Team

Blanca Bustos is a second-year master's student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Language and Literacy. She has taught Spanish and ESL in middle school setting. Her interests include bilingual/multilingual education, translanguaging and supporting Latinx and Latinx Indigenous students’ education. 

Joy Chen

Design Team

Joy Chen is a second-year doctoral student in the Special Education Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary teacher collaboration, specifically on how to cultivate a more supportive and efficient collaboration between special and general education teachers. She also hopes to support teachers in creating more inclusive classes for students from various backgrounds, which will ultimately benefit students academically and socially.

Minjoo Chong

Communications Team

Minjoo Chong is a second-year Ph.D. student in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, specializing in Social Science and Education Policy. Her research takes a comparative and critical approach to education policy, aiming to analyze educational institutions in both the U.S. and internationally to develop policy recommendations for improvement. She primarily focuses on textual analysis, examining how power dynamics are reflected in policy documents, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Ashley Dawson

Abstracts & Awards Team

Ashley Dawson is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, CREATE program. Her research centers around using diverse and inclusive literature in schools to support culturally sustaining pedagogies. Specifically, her focus is on using LGBTQ+ inclusive literature in elementary classrooms to cultivate critical thinking and to support liberatory teaching and learning.

Dyamond Howell

Liaison

Dyamond Howell is a third-year Ed.D student in the Education Policy, Organization and Leadership program with a concentration in diversity and equity at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dyamond holds a BA in Cinema and TV Arts and an MA in Native-American Leadership with a concentration in Education. She has over five years of higher education experience in both student affairs and alumni engagement. Dyamond's research interests broadly include Black and Native-American educational access and success and the role of DEI spaces in student retention at higher education institutions. Her current research aims to understand shared governance between tribal leaders and non-tribal school leaders over Native student education. She also currently serves as the Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement Initiatives at her undergraduate alma mater, Elon University.

Hyeyoon Jeong

Logistics Team

Hyeyoon Jeong is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership (EPOL), specializing in Human Resource Development (HRD). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Education, and a master’s degree in HRD and Organizational Learning at Yonsei University, South Korea. Currently, She is working as a Teaching Assistant in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Her research interests are Organizational Learning, Workplace Learning, Emotions, Attitudes, and Relationships in the workplace. She hopes to explore how employees' emotional experience shapes their workplace learning and development.

Jae Jun Jong

Logistics Team Lead

Jae Jun Jong is a Ph. D student in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Previously, he worked as an elementary school teacher and taught various subjects, including English, science, and computer. Due to the previous experience as a teacher, Jae Jun became interested in conducting research on the motivation, attitude, and achievement of STEM students. His current interest includes the effect of language on STEM students motivation and attitude toward content. Jae Jun hopes to work in educational settings, to promote students learning in STEM by improving students’ attitudes and motivation towards STEM.

Logan Hillary Lauren

Design Team Lead and Accessibility Coordinator

Logan Hillary Lauren is a second-year doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction. Their research interests include equity in science education, sign language and cognition, embodied learning, queer identity development, and epistemologies of marginalized identities such as deaf/disabled and transgender. They have a Masters of Science in Biology from Illinois, a certificate in Graphic Design: Digital Illustration from Parkland College, and ten years of experience in content development for science classrooms and museums.

Martin Lehrer

Technology Team Lead

Martin Lehrer, M.A. is a doctoral student in the Curriculum and Instruction department’s CREATE program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (MATESL) at UIUC as a Fulbright Grantee, graduating with distinction—a recognition he also achieved as the University Valedictorian during his undergraduate studies. Martin brings a wealth of teaching experience spanning K-12 to college-level instruction in the United States, Germany, France, Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Poland, where he also had opportunities to study and conduct research with renowned faculty members and international colleagues. Within the College of Education, Martin serves as a Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant, where he leads the technology team for the Graduate student conference and works at the International Programs Office, guiding teachers and candidates and developing curriculum. His research focuses on multilingualism in bilingual kindergartens and teacher education. He is also honored to be the recipient of the Seymour B. Stiss College of Education Fellowship.

Shanika Mungin

Communications Team Lead

Shanika Mungin is a third-year Doctor of Education (EdD) scholar in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership with a concentration in Diversity and Equity in Education. Her research interests are deeply rooted in her extensive experience as an academic and personal development practitioner in college athletics. Shanika’s scholarly inquiry focuses on the high school experiences of Black boys, examining how formative experiences impact identity and subsequently their academic performance and athletic success.

Israt Zahan Nipa

Abstracts & Awards Team

Israt Zahan Nipa is a 4th year Ph.D. student in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership with a concentration in Global Studies in Education at UIUC. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s in English literature from Premier University, Bangladesh. Israt has six years' teaching experience from school to university. She worked as a lecturer at BGC Trust University Bangladesh for more than three years. Her research interest lies in the internationalization of higher education, international students’ experience, and identity development. Israt is currently working as a teaching assistant for the College of Liberal Arts and Science and the College of Education.

Fatmanur Önder

Technology Team

Fatmanur Önder is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Special Education at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has experience working in both private special education centers and public special education high schools in Türkiye. Her primary experience involves supporting students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) aged 14 to 20. Fatmanur's research focuses on addressing math difficulties in children from pre-K to 5th grade. She is dedicated to discovering and developing new methods to improve math outcomes for students during early childhood and their early school years.

Logan Pender

Conference Schedule Team

Logan Pender is a first-year master’s student in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership, concentrating in Global Studies in Education. He is one of twenty-six official representatives of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as a 2024 Gilman International Scholarship Alumni Ambassador. Originally from Rock Hill, South Carolina, Logan earned a BA in Individualized Studies with a concentration in International Education for Higher Education Administration from Winthrop University, where his research explored barriers faced by historically underrepresented students in studying abroad. His current research interests explore how educational diplomacy in education abroad exchanges foster Social and Cultural Wealth Capital, framed by UN SDG 4, with a particular emphasis on the United States - Republic of Korea alliance.

Zhen (Valerie) Ren

Communications Team

Zhen (Valerie) Ren is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy Education program within the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She had taught English to young children in elementary school and extracurricular settings for years. Her research focuses on the bilingual and biliterate practices of emerging bilingual children, especially how they navigate and develop proficiency in both languages while maintaining their cultural identities. Currently, her research focuses on the multimodal literacy practices of bilingual children and teachers, with an emphasis on how these practices help sustain and nurture learners' bicultural identities in community-based educational settings. Through her work, she aims to contribute to more inclusive and culturally sustaining pedagogies in bilingual education.

Bhakti Verma

Abstracts & Awards Team Lead

Bhakti Verma is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Language and Literacy. She has a bachelor's degree in Economics and a master's degree in Psychology. She has more than 15 years of work experience in the field of education working with schools and after school centers. Bhakti's research interests span Children's Literature, English language learning, and Community centered research. She is working on a public engagement research assistantship jointly supported by the College of Education and Humanities Research Institute.

Cong Wan

Design Team

Cong Wang is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in language and literacy. Her research explores English as a foreign language education, multimodal and academic writing, and the integration of AI in language learning within higher education. Currently, she is particularly interested in how educators can utilize AI tools to enhance undergraduate students' composition skills.

Cigdem Yurekli

Conference Schedule Team

Cigdem Yurekli is a third-year Ph.D. student in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Language & Literacy. Cigdem has a Bachelor's in Teacher Training for Turkish Language and Literature and a master's degree in Education with an emphasis on Literacies and Children's Literature. Her current research interests are adolescent literacy practices, teacher education, book censorship, and Q methodology.

Karla Möller

Karla is the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the Graduate Student Services Office. Karla's research, teaching, and service coalesces around her interconnecting interests in cultural diversity and language, reading and response to literature, and issues related to social justice, educational equity, and children’s engagement and success in school. Her work connects three aspects of literacy and literature-based instruction through a focus on material availability and selection (e.g., What literature is available to use in schools? What can be done to improve availability of authentic culturally diverse materials?); on content (e.g., What literature do educators actually use and why? What is taught—or left out—with regards to literature within school-based instruction?) and on procedures (e.g., How is use of literature in schools organized? Who has access to literature-based instruction? What can be done to improve access for all students to opportunities for creative and critical thinking connected with reading literature?).

Lori Fuller

Lori Fuller has been working in the College of Education for over eight years with a total of 16 years of service at the university. She has been providing support to the Graduate Student Services Office since October 2021.