People

Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD is Professor of Early Childhood Education at The University of Texas at Austin. A trained cultural anthropologist and former preschool teacher, Dr. Adair works to understand the impact of racism and white supremacy on the early schooling experiences of young children. Dr. Adair is a former Young Scholars Fellow with the Foundation for Child Development, a major grant recipient of the Spencer Foundation to study civic action in preschool classrooms, and most recently a multi-year grant recipient from the Brady Foundation to culturally validate and test the Markers of Agency tool, a capacity-building, culturally flexible agency measurement tool rooted in 10 years of agency research, racial justice and children’s capabilities. Dr. Adair is the author, along with co-author Dr. Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, of the book, Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism and Early Learning (The University of Chicago Press, 2021) which won the 2021 Council on Anthropology and Education Outstanding Book Award and the 2021-2022 Book Study Award from the High Scope Educational Research Foundation.

As an academic, Dr. Adair has published in numerous journals including Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Race, Ethnicity and Education, and Young Children. She teaches courses on qualitative research with young children, the impact of socio-political/cultural factors on development and a range of early childhood and research methods courses.Dr. Adair currently serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and lectures in multiple countries. Jennifer speaks to the public at venues such as SXSW, SXSWedu, and Blackademics about the relationships between agency, racism, parenting and technology, as well as through public media appearances on CBS, NBC, Washington Post, NPR, New America, Code Switch, Huffington Post, Edweek, and The Conversation.

Graduate Students

Affiliated Scholars

Katherina Payne, PhD

Katherina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Social Studies area at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research and teaching interests focus on understanding, questioning, and furthering the relationship between public schools and the health and renewal of democracy.

Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, PhD

Kiyomi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Bilingual Bicultural Education area at Texas State University. Her work centers on better understanding the curricular and pedagogical preferences of Latinx immigrant parents and the relationship between home and school particularly in the early grades.

Soyoung Park, PhD

Soyoung holds a faculty position in Early Childhood Special Education at the Bank Street Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on the educational experiences of children who are at the intersection of English learner status and special education designation.

Alejandra Barraza, PhD

Alejandra is the Network Principal at Carroll and Tynan Early Childhood Centers in San Antonio Independent School District. Her research explores how administrators see high-quality early childhood education, particularly for young, underserved populations.

Molly E. McManus, PhD

Molly is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development at San Francisco State University. Prior to this, she was a postdoc with the Agency and Young Children Research Collective at the University of Texas at Austin. A former bilingual elementary school teacher and educational psychologist by training, her research explores the ways that early childhood education contexts shape the learning experiences and development of young children from Latinx immigrant and other marginalized communities.

Anna is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Social Studies in the College of Education at The University of Memphis. Anna is a former preschool and elementary school teacher, and her research is focused on critical issues such as race/racism in early childhood social studies.

Monica Alonzo, MA

Monica is a doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Early Childhood Education area at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a former special education preschool teacher. Her research focuses on inclusive early childhood classroom communities.

Natacha Jones, PhD Candidate

Natacha is a graduate student in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Early Childhood Education area at the University of Texas at Austin. She has a decade of teaching experience as a bilingual and early childhood teacher. Her research focuses on equitable pedagogies and educational experiences for communities of color and other marginalized communities.

Sunmin Lee, PhD

Sunmin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Early Childhood Education area at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a formal preschool teacher and had worked with young children in South Korea and the U.S. Her research centers on the experiences of young children and families in inclusive early childhood educational settings.

Nnenna Odim, PhD

Nnenna is a doctoral student in Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Early Childhood Education area at the University of Texas at Austin. Her experience as an early childhood teacher guides her exploration into the ways young children negotiate and resist inequity in their environment. Her research focuses on socio-cultural influences and inquiry-driven interactions in early childhood spaces.

Shubhi Sachdeva, PhD

Shubhi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. Her experience in early education spans three countries: India, Taiwan, and the U.S. Her research interests include global perspectives on childhood, socio-cultural processes in early education, and equity and social justice issues in early education.