Urban Schooling Student Directory
The Urban Schooling Division is committed to advancing scholarship, research, and practice of urban schooling. Urban Schooling strives to challenge oversimplified “deficit” frameworks that fail to explore the complexity of issues facing urban schools and their communities. In their coursework, students use various methodologies and theoretical frameworks to develop both macro and micro, or situated, views of urban schooling and its policy implications. Our program also seeks to examine the consequences of current practices and policies as well as to develop alternatives to the present system that result in systemic change.
Ph.D. Student Directory Request FormYear Entered Program: 2024 – 2025
Year Entered Program
2024
Student Bio
Michelle is a Ph.D. student in Urban Schooling, where she studies the intersections of learning in and with community, cultural strengths, and Land-based education. She is passionate about advocating for institutions to provide quality education for immigrant students through building and sustaining strong, long-lasting school-community bridges that honor the knowledges of immigrant communities.
Teaching and Research Interests
- Community engaged research
- Land-based education
- School-community partnerships
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
- Eugene v. Cota-Robles Fellow
Education
Publications
- Hernandez Romero, M., Perez, Y., & Beckett, L. K. (2023). Plantando Amor y Cultivando Unidad: A Story of Building and Sustaining an Immigrant-Led Community Garden in Partnership with a University. In Critical Campus Sustainabilities: Bridging Social Justice and the Environment in Higher Education (pp. 129-140). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
- Beckett, L. K., & Hernandez Romero, M. (2023). Developing a Praxis of Loving Relations: Lessons from a Community-University Partnership that Centers Undergraduate Research and Learning. In Critical Campus Sustainabilities: Bridging Social Justice and the Environment in Higher Education (pp. 117-127). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
- Beckett, L. K., Severance, S., Hernandez, M., Najera, A., & Pacheco, J. (2023). Exploring the Primacy of Cultural Strengths for Purposeful (Agri) cultural STEM Learning in a Mexican Immigrant Community. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2023, pp. 569-576. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2024
Student Bio
Seth is a graduate of North Carolina Central University and a proud native of Charlotte, North Carolina. With a passion for education, Seth has dedicated his academic and professional pursuits to exploring the Education of African American Males, Race and Education, and the development of Black Males within Education. He desires to make his work reflect a deep commitment to supporting the academic achievement and overall well-being of Black Males, aiming to foster environments where they can thrive both intellectually and personally. As an educator, Seth is focused on using research to drive meaningful change in educational systems.
Specialization
- The Education of Black Boys
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2023 – 2024
Year Entered Program
2023
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2024
Student Bio
Mikaela Zetley is an educator and Ph.D. student in the Urban Schooling division at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies, where she studies the intersection of disability justice, critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies, and mathematics education. She is passionate about creating learning spaces where mathematics educators can subvert racism and ableism, which she does in collaboration with the UCLA Mathematics Project. Drawing from her years working as a middle school mathematics and special education teacher in an inclusive classroom in Boston Public Schools, Mikaela aims to create affirming and humanizing learning environments for disabled and neurodivergent learners and educators.
Teaching and Research Interests
- Mathematics teaching and learning
- Disability justice & critical disability studies in education
- Culturally sustaining pedagogies
- Intersections of race, queerness, language, & disability
- Inclusive education in public schools
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
- Marion W. Wells Fellowship, UCLA, 2023-2024
Education
- B.S. in Education & Social Policy, Northwestern University
Research Centers
- Center X
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2023
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2022 – 2023
Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
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Advisor
Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
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Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Year Entered Program
2022
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
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Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2021 – 2022
Year Entered Program
2021
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
ward@gseis.ucla.edu | LinkedIn | Twitter
Year Entered Program
2024
Teaching and Research Interests
- Cognitively Guided Instruction
Advisor
julietarico@g.ucla.edu | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | X
Year Entered Program
2021
Student Bio
Julieta Rico is a Ph.D. student in the Urban Schooling Division at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies. Rico draws on her experience of being an ELA 7th grade teacher in South Texas and focuses her research on the navigation and sense of belonging of teachers of color in schools.
Specialization
- Teacher Education
Awards, Honors and Fellowships
- 2024-2025 Graduate Research Mentorship, UCLA Graduate Division
Education
- The University of Texas at Austin, M.Ed – Educational Policy & Planning, 2021
- The University of Texas at Austin, B.A – English Literature, 2017
Select Publications
- Callahan, R. M., Rico, J., Obenchain, K. M., Ochoa, C., & De Santos-Quezada, A. (2024). Civic identity: media, belonging, and Latiné youth in the 2020 US presidential election. Identities, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2024.2367895
- Gándara, P., Santibañez, L., Ee, J., & Rico, J. (2023). The Impact of a Broken Immigration System on U.S. Students and Schools. [Policy brief]. UCLA: The Civil Rights Project / Proyecto Derechos Civiles. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2rq7q7hh
- Rico, J., and Santiago, D. (2021, September 23) Going deeper to better SERVE Latino students during COVID-19. Excelencia in Education. https://excelenciaineducation.medium.com/going-deeper-to-better-serve-latino-students-during-covid-19-56ec480698df
Research Center Affiliations
- Center X
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2021
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2021
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2024
Student Bio
Sonya Brooks is a first-year Ph.D. student in Urban Schooling division at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research interests lie at the intersections of Education Policy, and Education that center the empowerment of Black girls by highlighting the health and well-being of Black girls and its impact on their educational trajectories. Her research agenda is to illuminate storytelling from Black mothers and othermothers to their Black daughters that have curated space for them to take agency over their own state of well-being and self-care. Sonya’s ultimate goal with her research is to simultaneously dismantle the challenges Black girls experience in healthcare and academia and empower them to create seats at their own tables when the seats at other tables have been filled.
Professionally, Sonya has worked by teaching and counseling students and creating equitable access for disabled employees for over a decade in the Oakland Bay Area.
Teaching and Research Interests
- Public education
- Education Policy
- Black girls
- Empowerment
- Equity
- Entrepreneurialism
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
- Black Feminism Initiative Fellowship, UCLA Center for the Study of Women
- UCLA Fiat Lux Research Fellowship, UCLA Urban Schooling
- 2021 Commencement Speaker, Brown University
- BEST Scholar, Brown University
- AKA Education Foundation Fellowship
- Eric White Community Service Award, UCLA Community Programs Office
- Renaissance Award, UCLA Center for the Study of Women
Education
- Ph.D., Urban Schooling, UCLA
- M.S., Education Policy, Brown University
- B.A., Maj: History & African-American Studies, Min: Education, UCLA
Research Centers
- David Geffen Medical School
- The Center for the Study of Women
- Million Dollar Hoods Research Initiative
Advisor
weiwei17@g.ucla.edu | LinkedIn
Year Entered Program
2024
Student Bio
Wei Wei is a first-year doctoral student from the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. She has a great passion for supporting underrepresented students from different social-cultural backgrounds. Wei is interested in designing culturally inclusive learning environments leveraging innovative technologies to support students’ STEAM learning in and outside of school.
Teaching and Research Interests
- Culturally inclusive design
- Educational technologies
- STEAM education
- Maker education
Education
- Master of Science in Education from the University of Pennsylvania
Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2020 – 2021
Year Entered Program
2020
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
abbiecohen@g.ucla.edu | CV | LinkedIn
Year Entered Program
2020
Student Bio
Abbie Cohen is a doctoral candidate in the Urban Schooling division at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies. Abbie’s research interests explore the intersection of out-of-school time (OST) learning settings, philanthropy, and public education. As a participatory and critical qualitative researcher, Abbie advances research on race, democracy, market-based reforms, and capital in educational institutions. Previously, she has worked as a teacher in Medellín, Colombia, a non-profit administrator in Denver, Colorado, and as a community partnerships director at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Throughout her differing roles, and ranging geographic locations, Abbie works to build bridges between people, organizations, and communities.
Specialization
- community-based research
- critical ethnography
- OST/CBO settings
- philanthropy
- public education
Teaching and Research Interests
- Community-based research methods
- Non-profits, philanthropy, and public schools
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
- 2024 Association of American University Women Dissertation Fellowship
- 2024 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship Semifinalist
- 2022-2023 Graduate Research Mentorship, UCLA Graduate Division
- 2022 Research Summer Fellow, UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy
- 2021 Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA Graduate Division
- 2020 Olga and Gordon Smith Award, UCLA, Urban Schooling Department
- 2015-2016 Fulbright Scholar, Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
Education
- PhD in Urban Schooling, expected June 2025 from UCLA
- M.A. Education Policy & Management from Harvard Graduate School of Education
- B.A. Psychology & Education from Tufts University
Publications
- Cohen, A (2024). Stuck between a rock and a hard place: An investigation into
- a youth-serving community-based organization, philanthropy, and urban public schools. Children & Schools.
- Cohen, A. (2024). Moving Beyond a Checklist: Community Schools for Democratic Education in California and Beyond. In: Nathan, L.F., Mendonca, J.F., Rojas Ayala, G. (eds) Designing Democratic Schools and Learning Environments. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46297-9_13
- Cohen, A. (2023). The forces underlying the public school enrollment drop. Phi Delta Kappan, 104(5), 30-36. https://kappanonline.org/public-school-enrollment-drop-cohen/
Research Centers
- UCLA Labor Center
- Luskin Center for History and Policy
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2020
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2020
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2019 – 2020
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
Publications
Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Mariana E. Ramírez is an Associate Director for the UCI History Project, focused on building collaborative networks between ethnic studies scholars, K-12 teachers, and their students in a meaningful study of local history through an ethnic studies methodology and pedagogy. She worked as a middle and high school teacher in the immigrant communities of Barrio Logan in San Diego and Boyle Heights in Los Angeles for 13 years. An important part of her work is engaging with students in geospatial community action research projects and serving as an advisor for student social justice organizations. She is currently a doctoral student part of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies in the Urban Schooling Division. Her research agenda lies at the intersections of ethnic studies pedagogy, critical geographies, and documenting local histories of joy and resistance of people of color via oral histories and archival research.
Specialization
- Ethnic Studies
- Critical Race Educational History
- Youth Participatory Action Research
- Geospatial
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
2021
- Honorable Mention for Ford Foundation 2021 Predoctoral Fellowship Competition
2019 – 2022
- Social Justice Graduate Fellow, UCLA Institute of American Cultures
- Social Justice Graduate Fellow Program in collaboration with the Office of the Vice Chancellor, Dr. David Yoo Curating Ethnic Studies resources for K-12 Ethnic Studies teachers. Responsible for coordinating across research centers.
Summer 2018
- Making a Difference Award from ESRI
- Award for making a difference in education using geographic information systems in youth research projects.
Winter 2018
- Sal Castro Award from the Los Angeles Unified School District
- Award for leadership development of youth, civic engagement, social justice education & advocate for equity and access to college/career pathways.
Education
Publications
- Partida, B. & Ramírez, M.E. (2023). An Emotive Testimonio Approach to Critical Race Educational History: Building Reciprocal Relationships with and for Our Communities. Ethnic Studies Pedagogies, Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2023).
- Mata, C.C., Díaz-Montejano, S.J., Ramírez, M.E., & Im, A. (2023). Cultural Intuition as Our Guide: Co-Constructing Knowledge in the K-12 Classroom. Ethnic Studies Pedagogies, Volume 1, Issue 1 (Spring 2023).
Research Centers
- Center X
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2019
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Advisor
Year Entered Program: 2018 – 2019
Year Entered Program
2018
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Research Centers
Advisor
Year Entered Program
2018
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
Awards, Honors, and Fellowships
Education
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Advisor
Year Entered Program
2018
Student Bio
Teaching and Research Interests
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Contact Us
Division Head
Robert Cooper
cooper@gseis.ucla.edu
(310) 267-2494
Division Graduate Advisor
Harmeet Singh
hsingh@gseis.ucla.edu
(310) 825-8327