About Me

Laura-Ann is a postdoctoral research fellow with the National Center for Institutional Diversity Stepping uP Against Racism and Xenophobia (SPARX) Project. Laura-Ann is a Korean American adoptee. She grounds her work in the qualities of creativity, compassion, and connectedness, and her research pursues questions about how people learn about their identities, how they choose to share their stories, and how they make their mark on the world. Laura-Ann graduated in 2021 from the University of Michigan with a doctorate in Educational Studies with a specialization in Literacy, Language, and Culture. Prior to her doctoral program, Laura-Ann taught public high school English in South Carolina for six years. Her dissertation focused on preparing secondary English Language Arts teachers for antiracist pedagogical change for the purposes of disrupting educational inequity and creating spaces for students to explore and express themselves. Her current work centers around how people individually and collectively translate our stated commitments of justice into action for the purpose of social change.

Click here to learn about my dissertation: “Telling Another Kind of Story”: Enduring Tensions in Preparing Secondary English Language Arts Teachers for Antiracist Pedagogical Change at the Curricular, Instructional, and Personal Levels