Honors-Awards-Grants

HONORS, AWARDS & GRANTS

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The Divergent Award 2022 for Excellence in Implementation of Literacy in a Digital Age

Awarded by Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age

To listen to the announcement for my award, click on the video clip above.navigate to the timestamp, 6:35.

During the pandemic of COVID-19, I set up Global Story Hour, a digital platform that aims to bring the community of rural Upstate New York together through diverse and multicultural children’s books.

The collaboration for this implementation involves several community partners, PK-12 schools, authors of children’s books, guest speakers, students enrolled in my Children’s Literature course and the university.

Through Global Story Hour, I created opportunities for my undergraduate students to apply the theories that they had learned into practice.

Students collaborated with librarians at five community/public libraries in rural areas of New York state and a local bookstore owner to do “live” read alouds. They took turns to promote the latest children’s books (with social justice themes) by creating book trailers and explored innovative ways to make children’s literature come alive to a virtual audience (egs. reader’s theater and simple performance-based activities).

We collaborated with the school district to host a virtual event, “Global Story Hour Explores the World with You”, for elementary school children (participating physically) during their curriculum hour.

Excerpt taken from media coverage on “Campus Events Celebrate Faculty Scholars”

SUNY Oneonta School of Human Ecology, Education & Sports Studies (SEHSS) 2022 Scholar of the Year Award

I am honored to be a recipient of this award at the end of the first year of teaching at SUNY Oneonta.

2022-2023 Student Grant Program for Research & Creative Activity (Summer Research Fellowship)

Storying Critical Social Worlds through Comics brings together students of different majors who are inspired by Loren Eiseley’s (1907-1977) The Starfish Story, a parable that illustrates how a small action as simple as throwing a starfish into the beach, could make a difference. Using comics, a genre that integrates the textual, visual and the contextual as a medium, each student fellow-cum-researcher, under my mentorship and supervision, contributes to storying a social justice issue (egs. racism, discrimination, oppression, ableism, sexism, etc.) that aims to promote diversity, inclusivity, and equity in education. This project received the Student Grant Program for Research & Creative Activity funded by the State University College at Oneonta Foundation, Inc. and the SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association . As a closure, students presented at a faculty-student symposium during the annual New York State Reading Association (NYSRA) conference in November.

Click on the sound icon to the right of the slide for music.

Teaching, learning & Leading A Racially Just Society was one of the public events that I initiated with funding from multiple sponsors - SUNY Oneonta Office of Equity & Inclusion, College Senate Committee on Public Event, SUNY Oneonta Foundation Inc., SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association and Milne Library. The aim is to promote racial literacy within the school, among students, faculty, staff and the Oneonta community. The Oneonta community came together for a short meet-and-greet session with our guest speaker, Professor Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz from Teachers College, Columbia University followed by two interactive workshops.

To learn more about Professor Sealey-Ruiz’s work, click here.

Research & Creative Activity Grants

2023 Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity (Summer Fellowship Track), SUNY Oneonta ($7280)
2023 Faculty Research and Creative Activity Grant, Fall semester (Course-based Track), SUNY Oneonta ($2000)
2023 Diversity & Teaching Seminar, Office of Equity and Inclusion, SUNY Oneonta ($3000)
2023 Diversity & Teaching Seminar, College Senate Committee on Public Events, Fall semester, SUNY Oneonta ($1000)
2023 Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity, Spring semester (Shadow Track), SUNY Oneonta ($1000)
2023 Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity, Spring semester (Course-based Track), SUNY Oneonta ($1000)
2023 Leatherstocking Writing Project - Saturday Seminar, College Senate Committee on Public Events, SUNY Oneonta ($400)
2022 Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity (Summer Fellowship Track), SUNY Oneonta ($7549)
2022 Student Grant Program for Research and Creative Activity, Fall semester (Course-based Track), SUNY Oneonta ($1000)
2016 Dissertation Research Grant, Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University
2015 Malvina McNeill Graduate Program Enrichment Fund

Fellowships, Honors & Awards

2024 Pillar Award, SUNY Oneonta
2024 International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE)-General Motors (GM) Artificial Intelligence Explorations Program Scholarship, ISTE-GM
2023 Winner of Little Free Library Book (LFL) Bundle, Little Free Library & Penguin Random House
2023 Early Career Cohort (ECC) Mentoring Program, National Council for Teachers of English Action Research (NCTEAR)
2023 Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium (DEFCon) Scholar, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
2022-2023 Creative Futures Scholar, Dartmouth College
2022-2023 Lead Faculty, Faculty Academy for Inclusive Pedagogy Initiative, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (OEI), SUNY Oneonta ($500)
2022-2025 Faculty Academy for Inclusive Pedagogy Initiative, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (OEI), SUNY Oneonta (Academic Year (AY) 22/23: $1500; 23/24: $1700; 24/25: $2000)
2022 Scholar of the Year Award, School of Education, Human Ecology and Sports Studies, SUNY Oneonta
2022 SUNY Faculty Advisory Council on Teaching and Technology (FACT2) Conference Scholarship, SUNY Oswego
2022 Sustainability Susquehanna Initiative, SUNY Oneonta ($1000)
2016 American Educational Research Association (AERA). Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group, Graduate Student Presenter/Travel award ($500)
2022 Open Education Research (OER) Fellowship, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
2022 Honoree of Divergent Award for Excellence in Implementation of Literacy in a Digital Age, Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age
2021 Invited Faculty Guest, Coalition for Community Writing (CCW) Emerging Scholar Award (sponsored to participate at CCW Conference 2021, October 21-23)
2021 Early Career Cohort (ECC) Mentoring Program, National Council for Teachers of English Action Research (NCTEAR)
2020 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Virtual Convention Scholarship
2020 Winner of National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) and Simon & Schuster Publishers books
2019 Conference Travel Award, Indiana University ($500)
2016-2019 J. Harste Alternative Literacies Fellowship, Indiana University ($5000)
2015 Conference Travel Award, Indiana University ($500)
2012 Associate Academy of Singapore Teachers Award – Outstanding contribution to the Professional Development of Teachers, Singapore.