School Honors Doctoral Students During 2017 PhD Recognition Ceremony

UCI School of Education held the 2017 PhD Recognition Ceremony on May 23rd. This annual event celebrates the year's accomplishments, recognizes academic distinctions, and awards internal scholarships.

Dean Richard Arum initiated the ceremonies by welcoming students, faculty, staff, and guests. He then provided an overview of doctoral student accomplishments from 2016 to 2017.

Text of Dean Arum's Overview of Doctoral Student Accomplishments 

This has been a year of accomplishments and change. Our ranking moved up to # 15 in the U.S. among public universities and we are preparing to welcome the newly hired faculty and students who will be joining us at the beginning of the Fall quarter, 2017.
 
You doctoral students have continued your impressive range of accomplishments and honors, including graduations, publications in major journals, presentations throughout the U.S., and representing the School of Education in the best possible light.
 
At this event, we begin by recognizing the graduates who received their degree in the last calendar year. They generally are not in attendance because they are dispersed in their new academic positions throughout the U.S., but an additional fifteen names are being added to the PhD honor plaque for 2016, and copies of their dissertations are being ordered. Congratulations to Tara Barnhart, Wenliang He, Sabrina Kataoka, David Lee, Kenneth Lee, Joyce Lin, Jennifer Long, Elizabeth Miller, Youngmin Park, Marcela Reyes, Rahila Simzar, Cathy Tran, Jessica Tunney, Cathery Yeh, and Alma Zaragoza-Petty.
 
Six of our current candidates will receive your degree in June. NaYoung Hwang, Janet Garcia Mercado, Lynn Reimer, Jennifer Sun, Tyler Watts, and Sara Young.

Seven of you are planning to graduate by December 2017: Nicholas James Graham, Christa Renee Greenfader, Ksenia A. Korobkova, Viet Vu, Soo Bin Yim, and Neil Young.
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Student Progress and Presentations

In April, 74 of you completed your Annual Report of Student Progress, which detailed your activities from Spring 2016 into Winter 2017. 
 
During this period, you published a total of 35 articles, demonstrating both scholarship accomplishment and your progression along the path to future membership in the Academy.
 
Thirty-six (36) your articles are currently in press, accepted for publication, undergoing revise and resubmit, or under review, and nineteen (19) publications are waiting response.
 
You have reported 71 publications that are in preparation,
 
You presented your work at a total of 134 conferences this past year, and you collectively attended a total of 30 conferences for academic and professional benefit.

Students in Leadership Positions

During 2016-2017, you assumed leadership positions and volunteered your time.
 
School organizations and activities that benefited from your participation included ADSE, DECADE, and Student Rep responsibilities; recruitment weekend, PhD orientation, and UCI Writing Project events; professional development seminars, brown bag presentations, and guest speakers; faculty search committees, the PhD admissions committee; labs and research centers, and Project Crystal.
 
Within UCI you contributed to DECADE and AGS, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program Symposium, UCI’s Discover Science Initiative, the Pedagogical Fellows Program, UCI Homecoming, and UCI’s Data Mining Symposium.
 
And at local, state, and national levels, you were active in AERA, SRCD, and other national organizations; various Boys & Girls Clubs; the California Forum on Diversity; Orange County Head Start, Orange County Very Special Arts, and the Orange County Arts/Imagination Celebration.

Scholarship

Your scholarship has been recognized both within the university and by outside organizations including travel awards to attend and present at conferences and colloquia.
 
To name a few of awards donors that are supporting your studies:

• AERA Outstanding Paper Award
• Chancellor’s Club Dissertation Fellowship
• Various Fellowships like Eugene Cota Robles
• Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowships
• Graduate Opportunity Fellowships
• NSF Fellowships
• Pedagogical Fellows Program
• People’s Choice Award
• Phi Beta Kappa International Scholar Award
• Provost PhD Fellowship
• Public Impact Dissertation Fellowship
• SRCD Millennial Program Scholarship
• TESOL Emerging Scholars Recognition
• Presidents Dissertation Year Fellowship
• Faculty Mentor Program Fellowship
• UCI Fostering Literacy
• UCI Most Promising Future Faculty Member Award

 
Congratulations to all of you for your hard work and your success. You have excelled, and you have brought honor to UCI and to the School of Education.
 
Now we move to presenting our culminating awards for the 2016-2017 academic year, which will be hosted by Distinguished Professor Jacquelynne Eccles, Associate Dean and Director of the PhD in Education program.

Text of Professor Eccles Presentation of the Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Scholarship and Service

In 2013, the School established the Michael E. Martinez Prize for Outstanding Research and Service. This annual award commemorates the scholarly and professional achievements of the late Michael E. Martinez, Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine, from 1992 through 2012. As a scholar, Professor Martinez is remembered for his significant contributions to our understandings of cognitive processes and the malleability of intelligence, and how these understandings could be applied to student learning. He is also remembered for the kindness and collegiality that he embodied. In his honor, this award is given to a doctoral student who demonstrates superior scholarship, intellectual curiosity, and high levels of professionalism, service and collaboration with fellow students and/or faculty. I’d like to invite Mrs. Stephanie Martinez to come forward to present the award to this year’s honorees
 
This year, it was difficult to select just one winner, as several of our students are doing remarkable things – as citizens, scholars, and learners. Although we did select a recipient, we also wanted to provide an honorable mention to a student who has been a tremendous resource in our school. This student is passionate about supporting and mentoring others, at both the graduate and undergraduate level. She has been a dedicated pedagogical fellow, developing new and innovative teaching approaches, organizing and leading workshops, and helping new teaching assistants. She is an active contributor to ADSE as well as the campus-wide AGS. Most recently, she is the SoE representative for the Discover Science Initiative (DSI), coordinating outreach activities and STEAM workshops. In addition to these tireless services, she has also conducted high-quality and interesting research. For these reasons, we would like to acknowledge Grace Lin with an Honorable Mention.
 
This year’s recipient has conducted excellent research, shown outstanding intellectual curiosity, and has been an exemplary student, collaborator, and citizen. He has excelled in all of his classes and collaborated with a wide group of students and faculty on an impressive list of publications. His dissertation focuses on how and why early mathematics achievement relates to later academic and other important outcomes.
 
Additionally, he has mentored in the School of Education’s DECADE Program, served as a Student Representative for ADSE, and taught undergraduate statistics. Less formally, he frequently helps his peers seeking data-related advice.
 
In the spirit of this award, he “has demonstrated intellectual curiosity, high quality scholarship, and collegiality” throughout his time here. It is with pleasure that we award the Michael Martinez Prize to Tyler Watts.

For the past two years, the Associated Doctoral Students in Education has honored a student for outstanding service to the School and to his fellow students. I’d like to invite Masha Jones, ADSE President, and Robert Kalinowski, ADSE Vice President, to come forward to present this award.

Text of Associated Doctoral Students In Education Presentation: Marsha Jones and Robert Kalinowski

It is our pleasure to present the Associated Doctoral Students in Education service award. ADSE was founded in 2012 as a way to coordinate communication among students, staff, and faculty. The service award is designed to honor a student whose work often goes unnoticed. A lot happens within these walls every day, and much of this work takes place behind the scenes. This award goes to someone who has selflessly given to the School, and we would like to acknowledge his time and energy by presenting Christopher Stillwell with the ADSE service award for 2017.
 
Christopher has shown great leadership and initiative in responding to the ongoing shift in our political and social climate. He has led the organization of our "Trump Talk" events, reaching out to the UCI community and members of the greater Orange County community to discuss relevant topics that have implications for our changing educational landscape. He has also worked hard to mobilize other PhD students at SoE to participate as advocates for the educational community.
 
The Associated Doctoral Students in Education thanks Christopher for all of his hard work and presents him the 2017 ADSE service award.

Professor Eccles Presentation of the Keith Curry PhD Scholarship

I’d like to invite Dr. Keith Curry, CEO of Compton Community College District and School of Education Alumnus, to come forward.
 
The Keith Curry Scholarship was established by Dr. Curry to honor a Ph.D. student who has demonstrated significant growth in academic achievement and unusual perseverance – qualities that Dr. Curry believes characterized his journey toward his doctorate. This year’s recipient of the Keith Curry scholarship award, Jennifer Sun, exemplifies these characteristics.
 
Jennifer earned this award by demonstrating her persistence in advancing through the Ph.D. program, despite numerous setbacks. For her dissertation, Jennifer proposed an ambitious study to investigate elementary mathematics teachers’ identity in the context of a three-pronged, year-long professional development program. She is to be commended for spending countless hours in a school setting for a full school year, collecting hours of data collection in the form of interviews and observations of classroom teaching and professional development meetings, and finishing her dissertation just a year later. Collecting and analyzing data in this timeframe is highly unusual and she deserves to be acknowledged for her focus and persistence in completing this major milestone. Finally, Jennifer encountered serious health issues last summer just after completing her data collection - what could have set her back many months. Despite this major setback, she returned in the fall quarter with a plan to narrow her analysis based on a strong theoretical framing, successfully completing the work despite taking on additional family responsibilities related to hospice care for her grandmother. We commend you for your focus and determination despite these major challenges.

Professor Eccles Presentation of the Keith Curry Undergraduate Scholarship

I am delighted to introduce the undergraduate recipient of the Keith Curry Scholarship, Pauline Ho. Pauline is a graduating senior with a double major in Education Sciences and Social Policy & Public Service. She is first generation student who has shown true grit, excellence in her academics, and dedication to the community. Nine years ago, Pauline Ho arrived in America, having only studied English for two hours. Today, Pauline has risen to achieve a variety of academic honors, such as membership in the international honor society for education, Kappa Delta Pi, and leadership roles at UCI, such as serving as a School of Education Peer Mentor, and as President of the Global Leaders Student Organization. In addition to her personal accomplishments, Pauline has given back to the community with a dedication shown by few. Pauline first discovered her passion in serving others by volunteering in a senior home, teaching English to minority language speakers. Since then, she has shown tremendous passion about encouraging and supporting low-SES diverse students in pursuing post-secondary education, particularly in STEM. In addition to tutoring and coaching high school students through the college application process, she is involved in the AppJam+ program, which provides URM students in middle school with the opportunity to learn the technical skills involved in application development and programming. ​This fall Pauline will be traveling to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue a PhD in Educational Psychology. Her long-term goal is to become a tenured professor conducting research and collaborating with community organizations to provide research-based services to ELL students. 
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Congratulations to all of you for your accomplishments.
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