PhD candidate Ruth López awarded AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship

Ruth López, PhD Candidate in the Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice program, has been awarded a 2014-15 American Educational Reserach Association (AERA) Minority Dissertation Fellowship. The fellowship provides $12,000 and up to $1,000 for AERA conference travel so that fellows can develop their promising dissertation research with the broader goal of advancing education research by outstanding minority graduate students and improving the quality and diversity of university faculties.

Ruth is a Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown University, where she contributes to the More and Better Learning Time project, which aims to adapt the school day and year to the learning needs of students and the lives of working families, as well as the evaluation of We Are a Village, a U.S. Department of Education–funded grant to improve family engagement in Central Falls, Rhode Island. As an expert regarding the rights of undocumented students to attend higher education, she recently testified at the Rhode Island House Committee on Finance in support of the state DREAM Act, which can be seen at the 47-minute mark of this video.

Ruth's dissertation is entitled, "Through No Fault of Their Own? A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis of Undocumented Youth and the DREAM Act in Spanish-language and English-language Television News."