Student Profiles

Nathan Blum, an MFA candidate in fiction, has published his book “Starting Over” on Ploughshares. He is also an Iowa Review Award finalist and teaches creative writing while serving as an advisory editor at Nashville Review. Congratulations Nathan!… Read More

Kumari Devarajan is a second-year MFA student in fiction from Washington DC. They were recently selected as a fellow for the Summer Workshop: Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices. Congratulations Kumari!… Read More

M.F.A. student Kinsale Drake was named one of the National Poetry Series Competition – National Poetry Series winners. Her debut poetry collection THE SKY WAS ONCE A DARK BLANKET was chosen by Jacqueline Trimble for the University of Georgia Press this year. Read More

Shirley Xu, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy and Leadership at Peabody College, has been honored as a 2024-2025 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow. This fellowship grants $27,500 to 35 fellows from various disciplines and professional fields who are working on dissertation projects that bring innovative… Read More

Mary is a PhD candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Peabody College. Her research focuses on how policies, programs, and organizations can better support students as they transition to postsecondary education and the workforce. She has been awarded an AERA-NSF Dissertation Grant for the 2024-25… Read More

Kathryn James McGraw has recently been selected to serve on the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) Graduate Student Council. This council is responsible for creating a community for emerging educational leadership, policy, and evaluation scholars in collaboration with UCEA’s Associate Directors for Graduate Student Development. Kathryn is… Read More

Coral is a PhD candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Peabody College. Coral was awarded the 2024 Bonsal Award for her dissertation research application essays and the holistic admissions process. The Bonsal Applied Education Research Award is designed to advance the development and completion of doctoral… Read More

Diana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Peabody College. Her dissertation focuses on the impact of test-based grade retention on students designated as English Learners (ELs). Diana’s dissertation was selected for the American Educational Research Association and National Science Foundation. Diana… Read More

Nicollette Mitchell, a fifth-year DTL student and Russell G. Hamilton Fellow, was recognized as a finalist for the International Society for the Learning Sciences Outstanding Student Paper Award. Her paper, titled “A Black woman in geoscience is like a unicorn”: Black women’s educational experiences in the geosciences,… Read More

Fifth-year DTL doctoral student Elizabeth (Lizi) Metts has received the CPM’s 2024 award for her Outstanding Dissertation in Mathematics Education. Using participatory research methods, Lizi’s scholarship focuses on how secondary mathematics teachers incorporate data science into their curricula, highlighting the possibilities and contradictions they encounter. Read More