
story by Claire Miller
College of Education & Human Development Assistant Professor Renata Love Jones is one of two researchers nationwide chosen for the 2021 Emerging Scholars Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Literacy Research Association’s Reading Hall of Fame.
The Reading Hall of Fame, which focuses its efforts on improving reading instruction, established the program to support and encourage new faculty members to concentrate on research and publication.
Jones is an assistant professor of language, literacy and culture in the college’s Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education. Her research broadly explores language and literacy education and development for racialized and multilingual children. Jones has worked on Institute of Education Sciences-funded projects that explore language-based reading and writing curriculum approaches in bi/multilingual contexts. She has also published her research in several journals, including Reading Research Quarterly, Reading Teacher and East China Normal University’s Review of Education. She is actively involved with national literacy and teacher education organizations, including the International Literacy Association, the National Council for Teachers of English, the American Educational Research Association and the American Association of Applied Linguistics.
She will be paired with two Reading Hall of Fame mentors, Carol D. Lee from Northwestern University and Kris Gutiérrez from the University of California, Berkeley. They will offer work/life balance advice, review manuscripts and suggest grant opportunities, among other mentorship activities. She will also have the opportunity to meet with other mentors and scholars at national and international conferences and potentially present her research and experiences at Reading Hall of Fame-sponsored conference sessions.
“As an emerging scholar from an underrepresented community, I want to develop a mentor relationship with a senior reading education scholar who has deeply engaged with learning science and critical theories, is oriented to equity in education and has already successfully navigated and impacted the field. I’m honored that the fellowship committee not only chose me, but also that they paired me with Drs. Lee and Gutiérrez,” she said. “I am grateful for this new opportunity to learn from them, and I can only imagine how this opportunity will impact the trajectory of my work.”
For more information on the Emerging Scholars Fellowship, visit https://www.readinghalloffame.org/reading-hall-fame-emerging-scholars-fellowship.