The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has selected TC’s KerryAnn O’Meara and Mark Gooden as 2025 Fellows in recognition of their exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research. AERA will honor O’Meara — TC’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean, and Professor of Higher Education — and Gooden — the Christian Johnson Endeavor Professor of Education Leadership — alongside 27 other Fellows at the annual meeting this April in Denver.
“This is a tremendous testament to the accomplishments of KerryAnn, Mark and to Teachers College by association,” said President Thomas Bailey. “Indeed, KerryAnn and Mark join a long line of TC faculty who have received this recognition, and we are so proud.”
AERA Fellows are nominated by their peers, selected and recommended by the Fellows Committee, and approved by the AERA Council, the Association’s elected governing group.
O’Meara is an internationally recognized scholar on academic careers and reward systems. She draws on insights from organizational behavior, higher education research, and behavioral economics to identify, test, and implement policies, practices, and interventions that embed transparency, clarity, credit, fairness and context in hiring, retention, workload and evaluation policies and practices. She joined Teachers College in 2023 from the University of Maryland, where she served as Professor of Higher Education and a Distinguished Scholar Teacher, and as Special Assistant to the Provost for Strategic Initiatives. She was elected and served as President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in 2020, and was elected as an ACE Fellow in 2022. Her work has been widely published, funded, and shared with colleges and universities trying to create more equitable workplaces.
Gooden is a widely acclaimed and published authority on culturally responsive school leadership. He examines legal and justice-centered policies and practices that support school leaders in their work, especially in urban schools. Gooden is the co-author of The Change You Want to See, published last fall, and Five Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership. A former middle and high school mathematics teacher, he is past president of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), 2017 recipient of UCEA Jay D. Scribner Mentoring Award and 2021 recipient of the UCEA Master Professor Award for distinguished service in teaching, curriculum development, and student mentoring. His work has been supported by entities such as the Wallace Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education.
O’Meara and Gooden join more than 20 TC faculty members who have been elected Fellows since the honor’s inception in 2008. With the 2025 cohort, AERA will have a total of 791 Fellows.
“The 2025 AERA Fellows join a brilliant group of scholars, and they are most deserving of this honor,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Their significant contributions to the education research field demonstrate the highest standards of academic excellence and scholarship.”
If you or another TC community member you know will be honored at AERA 2025, please let us know here. Additional coverage related to AERA to come.
AERA’s membership has also elected Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Professor of English Education, to a three-year term, beginning 2025-26, as a Member-at-Large on the organization’s Council. Sealey-Ruiz, a widely-published scholar on culturally-relevant education and racial literacy, previously received numerous honors from AERA, including the Mid-Career Award in 2016, and the Critical Educators for Social Justice Mentor Award in 2018.
The organization has also appointed Na Lor, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Education as Program Chair-Elect of the Cultural Historical Research, SIG #30. Lor joined the Teachers College faculty in 2022. Her research leverages mixed methods, cultural historical activity theory, and transformative paradigms to address education inequity.
AERA has also elected Prem Phyak, Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education, as Program Chair of the Decolonial, Postcolonial and Anti-Colonial Studies in Education, SIG #153. Phyak joined the TC faculty in 2023, and his research interests include language policy, multilingual education and translanguaging, in addition to many other topics in the field.
TC doctoral student Edith P. Middleton was voted Chair-Elect of the Graduate Student Council. She will serve a three-year term following the 2025 Annual Meeting and join the AERA Council in 2026–2027. With fifteen years of teaching experience, Middleton focuses on teacher education and mentorship in her scholarship, particularly for mid to late career educators.