People
Director
Jennifer Keys Adair, PhD
Jennifer is the founder and director of the Agency and Young Children research team. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Early Childhood Education area at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on the connection between agency and discrimination in the early learning experiences of children of immigrants.
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.
Michelle Salazar Pérez is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research centers on reframing how minoritized young children are constructed in early childhood studies through the use of women of color feminist perspectives.
As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin, Paty Abril-Gonzalez centers and listens to the spoken, written, and artistic testimonios of Latinx bilingual students, pre-service teachers, and their families. She considers the importance of meaningful and long-term relationships in bilingual education through multimodal arts-based research approaches. Before becoming a professor, Paty Abril-Gonzalez was a bilingual elementary school teacher in both dual immersion and traditional bilingual education settings.
Denise is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Language and Literacy Studies program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research and teaching interests focus on the use of culturally and linguistically relevant children’s literature to support children’s home literacy practices and school readiness.
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
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, MA
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, MA
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.
María José Ruiz González, MA
María José has a Masters in Bilingual-Bicultural Education and currently is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. Her expertise in early childhood comes from her work as a preschool teacher and teacher educator in her home country of Costa Rica.
Shubhi Sachdeva, MS
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.