Faculty Features

Saili Kulkarni, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Special Education Twitter: @Dr_Koolkarni

Dr. Saili Kulkarni has been awarded a racial equity grant from the Spencer Foundation for her research studying the intersections of disability and race and the implications for PK-12 education, justice studies and educators.

The grant supports education research projects aimed at understanding and improving racial inequity in education. Kulkarni and her team will receive $75,000 to pursue their project, “Playing Together: Using Learning Labs to Reduce Exclusionary Disciplinary Practices for Young Children of Color with Disabilities.”

Nearly six years ago, Kulkarni and her colleagues noticed a dearth of literature on the subject of exclusionary discipline - such as expulsion and suspension - for young children of color with disabilities, so they decided to take matters into their own hands.

“The idea came from a combination of our own experiences as special ed teachers, but also the experiences that we had working with other early childhood special ed teachers in toddler classrooms and centers,” Kulkarni said.

Read the full story from the SJSU Division of Research and Innovation at bit.ly/36Tby0N

Ellen Middaugh, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Child and Adolescent Development Twitter: @emiddaugh

Dr. Ellen Middaugh has been selected to receive the SJSU Research Foundation’s annual Early Career Investigator Award (ECIA) for her work on youth civic engagement, particularly on how to teach social media and Internet skills to those aged 15 to 25. Each year, the ECIA recognizes two tenure-track faculty who have excelled in areas of research, scholarship, and creative activity during their probationary period at SJSU.

“There’s a lot of research that suggests adolesence is a time when a lot of identity work is being done, where people really start to define themselves,” Middaugh said. “If you become active during adolescence and emerging adulthood, that tends to carry on through later adulthood, so there’s a window of opportunity.”

To complete this research, Middaugh collaborates with a team of SJSU undergraduate and graduate students, who are able to gain a deeper understanding of how to construct a research project while developing practical experiences with interviewing techniques, statistical analysis software, and much more.

Watch the full video recognition from the SJSU Research Foundation on the Lurie College blog.