We are pleased to announce that Dr. Luis A. Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Education Leadership and Policy Studies in the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology, has been selected as a recipient of the 2023 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship!
Funded by Spencer, but administered through the National Academy of Education, the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is designed to promote scholarship in the United States and abroad on matters relevant to the improvement of education in all its forms. Dr. Rodriguez was among 25 postdoctoral fellows selected from a competitive pool of 195 education scholars.
In NAEd’s full press release, President Dr. Carol Lee states, “The NAEd/Spencer Fellowships represent an important investment in the future leaders in education research. In these times of uncertainty, the continued support of future leaders in education research is of paramount importance, and our fellows will play an important role in shaping that future. We face challenging questions around how research can inform new understandings of learning and development and the systems that support them. I look forward to working with and supporting our fellows and awardees in the coming year.”
Dr. Rodriguez will be completing a mixed methods study with the generous support of the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, which will use an explanatory sequential design to investigate paraprofessional demographics and career trajectories and their ambitions to enter the teaching profession, specifically within the New York City context. The study will provide a descriptive portrait of the paraprofessional pool and identify the organizational conditions that support and impede paraprofessionals from transitioning into full-time teaching roles. The study funded by the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship marks a continuation of Dr. Rodriguez’s work on how policy as well as organizational and socio-political factors affect the educator workforce and its ability to generate positive outcomes for students.
His recent and ongoing research in this area has been done in large part as a scholarly affiliate of the Institute for Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC) and the Research Affiliate with the Research Alliance for New York City Schools (RANYCS).
