October 2013

The AERA Grants Program held its annual Fall Research Conference in Washington, D.C., on October 10–12, giving current AERA Grants Program dissertation grantees and AERA-AIR and AERA-ETS fellows an opportunity to engage with and learn from recent grantees as well as senior scholars and professionals representing a variety of disciplines in education research. The event is one of a number of professional development activities offered to dissertation grantees as part of their award.

Organized by Grants Program Governing Board Chair Jacquelynne Eccles of the University of Michigan, together with Chandra Muller of the University of Texas at Austin and George Wimberly of AERA, the conference contained sessions on STEM and STEM learning, cognitive and noncognitive research, and college access, enrollment, and persistence presented by recent grantees and fellows. AERA President Barbara Schneider spoke about solving societal problems with educational data. And a panel featuring representatives from WestEd, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, and the American Institutes for Research discussed using data to inform policy and practice.