Teaching and learning doctoral student Justice Ejike has been selected for one of 15 highly competitive annual fellowships with the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), a resource network for STEM education researchers supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The CADRE Fellows program, which is now in its 15th year, provides capacity-building and networking opportunities for researchers who are in the early stages of their STEM education careers. The new Fellows include doctoral students and postdocs with varying backgrounds and research interests who have a shared commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in pre-K-12 STEM education.
Ejike is interested in the unique ways that Black youth demonstrate brilliance in and out of the classroom. He works with the STEM M.Ed. teachers at Georgia State University to center equity, rigorous pedagogy and constructivist application to learning. Ejike facilitates relatable and creative experiences to reimagine STEM classrooms as communities of joy and belonging.
In the coming year, the new CADRE Fellows will explore career pathways, research dissemination and use, community building and collaboration, and research funding. They will engage in experiences such as peer mentoring and a mock DRK-12 proposal review led by an NSF program director. They will also collaborate with one another on a career development project.
“The CADRE Fellows program offers a unique opportunity for early career researchers to network with and learn from NSF-funded STEM education awardees from across the country,” said Catherine McCulloch, who oversees the program along with Terrell Morton and Jenn Stiles. “It’s an honor to coordinate a program that, in part, is focused on broadening participation within the research community.”
For the full list of the 2024 CADRE Fellows, or to learn more about the program, go to www.cadrek12.org.