CEHD Research in Press: February 2026

NEWS 

Dr. Virginia Clinton-Lisell is the recipient of the Founders Day UND Foundation/McDermott Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity. This award aims to recognize a tenured UND faculty member who has achieved original and high-quality research or made significant scholarly or creative contributions, especially the kind that has garnered state and national success, and also made an educational impact. Her award letter from Vice President for Research & Academic Development Scott Snyder stated, “Your record of receiving both national and international attention for your research on text comprehension and open education truly demonstrates your strong ability to lead interdisciplinary research initiatives that address critical challenges. Your publication record, coupled with your outstanding work involving students in your research undertakings, shows a commitment and excellence deserving of this award. I look forward to your continued success.”

Dr. Lee Ann Rawlins Williams has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Committee on Rehabilitation Accreditation (CoRA). Her term begins on January 1, 2026, and expires on December 31, 2029.  The Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Programs is a post-secondary accrediting body and is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Under the auspices of CAAHEP, there are 31 professions that are represented by 25 Committees on Accreditation (CoAs).

Dr. Pempho Chinkondenji was invited to speak at the February 2026 GINAE Professional Development Workshop for GINAE STEM Mentorship Fellows. Hosted by the EKO Global Foundation, the workshop convened 57 participants from seven African countries—Ghana, Uganda, Eswatini, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Namibia, and Cameroon—fostering cross-country dialogue on education, mentorship, and student leadership.

As a community service project, Dr. Shannon Grave wrote and secured a grant on behalf of the Fargo Lions Vision Assistance Program from the Optometric Foundation of North Dakota. Shannon’s role with the grant going forward is to seek and obtain additional grant funding so that the club can pay for glasses for individuals who cannot otherwise purchase them. They partner with several social and medical service organizations (e.g., Family Healthcare in Fargo, Eyemart Express, area schools/school nurses and social workers, social services, etc.) to screen the requests so we are the payor of last resort.

Frannie Tunseth, one of our phenomenal grad students and ND’s teacher of the year, invited Dr. Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz to join her as she kicked off a new podcast series with Prairie Public on Education in ND. The episode was all about teachers — shortages, retention, and respect. The host came to us with some very thoughtful questions about the importance of public schools, teachers, and also to plug some great work happening at UND across our programs and by our grad students. You can find the recording here.

Dr. Elizabeth Suazo-Flores received a shout-out in the newsletter of the AERA Narrative Research SIG for their publication of a new article entitled: Mathematics teacher educators’ intimate scholarship: Being, knowing, and ethics. “We published an original book documenting mathematics teacher educators’ intimate scholarship. We are grateful for the support of Stefinee Pinnegar in getting us connected and motivated to do this work.”

Dr. Matt Knutson, appointed to the Fulbright Specialist Roster on June 14, 2024, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialist appointment at Hochschule Offenburg, a university of applied sciences in Germany. He will travel there on May 19, 2026, and is expected to return around June 23, 2026. Dr. Knutson’s project will explore the pre-history of esports, studying organized competitive gaming before it became a formal, spectator-driven industry. He has presented on early 1990s collegiate gaming competitions and published research on 1980s arcade tournaments for players with disabilities. His current focus is the Bundesliga, the earliest known competitive gaming league from Germany (1982-1987), featuring Atari games. During his appointment, he will digitize archival materials, share them with institutions like the Strong Museum of Play, conduct interviews with former players, and seek any surviving video footage. This work will inform conference presentations and journal articles, and, combined with his prior research, may ultimately become a comprehensive book on the origins of esports.

SPOTLIGHT

In 2026, we will continue to highlight completed and active grants within CEHD that showcase the breadth and impact of faculty research, scholarship, and innovation.

Dr. Julie Robinson. NSF Award #2010169, Project ExCEED, explored changes in elementary and middle school teachers’ engineering design self-efficacy and practice through on-going, collaborative, and culturally-relevant professional development. This project supported teachers in rural schools in creating and implementing engineering design tasks that are relevant to their local communities and embed the North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings. Outcomes of this project included a model of on-going, collaborative professional development, as well as a Culturally Relevant Engineering Design Framework (CRED) that is being used widely across classrooms and professional learning opportunities ($449,820).

Dr. Logan Rutten. Recently served as project co-leader for Professional Learning About Constructing Assessment for Indigenous Knowledges, a grant funded by the W. K. Kellogg foundation. This grant funded a team of school- and university-based partners to learn together with Indigenous language and culture teachers about the processes involved in constructing large-scale assessments for Indigenous knowledges. The project generated and piloted a portfolio-based approach to assessment that is holistic, strengths-based, growth-oriented, and community-engaged; the assessment is currently being implemented and scaled-up for wider dissemination.

Dr. Jesse Rhoades. Dr. Rhoades was funded for a NASA study evaluating spacecraft accessibility for parastronaut activities ($100,000, 2022), a NASA-funded evaluation of commercial EVA suit mobility ($100,000, 2021), and a U.S. Army Research Office project examining cognitive performance under demanding CBRN mission conditions ($499,999, 2022). These awards collectively highlight UND’s leadership in EVA mobility research, human spaceflight biomechanics, and human-performance science in extreme environments.

LATEST SCHOLARSHIP

CEHD faculty are in bold, and CEHD students are underlined. 

Publications

Link, L. J., Leeson, M. P., & Anthes, J. R. (2026). Bridging the gap: Reforming grading practices for improved student equity and achievement. In M. Reardon & J. Leonard (Eds.) Volume XI: Learning in a time of division: School-university-community research in education. Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80592-459-320251023

Wang, T. (2025). Toward glocal citizenship: Rethinking the traditions, goals, and curricular themes of international education. Intercultural Education, 36(6), 741–760. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2025.2535203

Chinkondenji, P. (2025). Student pregnancy: Global perspectives. In E. E. Blair & L. S. Deckman (Eds.). In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Education and Gender (Vol. 2, pp. 717-721), SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071926697

Chamdimba, E. & Chinkondenji, P. (2025). Albinism, gender, and schooling. In E. E. Blair & L. S. Deckman (Eds.). In The SAGE Encyclopedia of Education and Gender (Vol. 2, pp. 11-13), SAGE Publications.  https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071926697

Suazo-Flores, E. (2025). Documenting knowing-in-action: A mathematics teacher’s curricular decision-making images. In Education, 30(3), 20-33. https://doi.org/10.37119/ojs2025.v30i3.910

Salahuddin, M., Hoberg, R., & Stupnisky, R. H. (2026). A systematic review identifying the measures and factors relating to faculty research success. Higher Education Studies, 16(1), 213–231. https://doi.org/10.5539/hes.v16n1p213

Banda, L.C.G., Carlson, J.M., Chitwanga, A.S., & Chinkondenji, P. (2026). A “Girl” or a “Child”?: Examining the “Rights-Based” Approach to Child Marriage in Malawi Through an African Feminist Lens. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-025-00422-7

Hacker, M.E. & Flinn, R.E. Letter to the Editor: Promoting medical student mental health requires addressing self-stigma of mental illness. (2026). Academic Medicine. https://academic.oup.com/academicmedicine/advance-article/doi/10.1093/acamed/wvaf049/8373381

Mitic, R.R., Brandenburg, M., Wu, B., & Khatun, R. (2026). Stellar ambitions: Lived experiences of international graduate students in space science from the Global South. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. https://doi.org/ 10.1108/SGPE-06-2025-0076

Presentations

Williams, L.A. (2025, December).  Ethics in Crisis:  Disaster impacts on rehabilitation professional practice. National Rehabilitation Counseling Association (NRCA), December 18, 2025. (Virtual Presentation)

Williams, L.A. (2025, December).  Tech, Trust & Tension: Ethical decision-making in high-tech rehab world.  National Rehabilitation Counseling Association (NRCA), December 18, 2025. (Virtual Presentation).

Williams, L. A. (March 2-4, 2026).  Teaching through the storm: Advancing teacher mental health and resilience in crisis contexts.   International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED), Valencia, Spain.

Rutten, L. (2026, February 3). The contemporary practitioner research movement: Today and tomorrow.  Invited virtual guest lecture for doctoral students in the School of Teaching & Learning, College of Education, University of Florida (UF).

Rutten, L., & Dana, N. F. (2026, February). Coaching the planning of practitioner inquiry: Reflections, key decision-making points, and resources. Presentation at the annual conference of the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), Crystal City, VA.

Rutten, L., & Dana, T. (2026, February). AI as critical friend: Deepening practitioner inquiry in teacher education. Presentation at the annual conference of the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), Crystal City, VA.

Rutten, L., Sherva, D., & Tunseth, F. (2026, February). Enhancing rural teachers’ decision making amid unplanned difficult-topics moments. Presentation at the annual conference of the Association of Teacher Educators (ATE), Crystal City, VA.

Stinchcomb, H., Luther, V., Rutten, L., & Garin, E. (2026, February). Methods for conducting research in partnership settings. Research symposium for the annual conference of the National Association for School-University Partnerships (NASUP), Crystal City, VA.

Rutten, L. (2026, February). Describing your school–university partnership for presentation or publication: A step-by-step approach. Presentation for the annual conference of the National Association for School-University Partnerships (NASUP), Crystal City, VA.

Sweetman Richoux, D., Wall, N., Dresden, J., Burns, R. W., Rutten, L., & Jacobs, J. (2026, February). Identifying the essentials guiding school–university partnerships. Presentation for the annual conference of the National Association for School-University Partnerships (NASUP), Crystal City, VA.

Rutten, L. (2026, February). Indigenous communities and university partners: Reflections from two approaches to building school–university partnerships. Presentation for the annual conference of the National Association for School-University Partnerships (NASUP), Crystal City, VA.

Mitic, R.R., Wu, B., & Brandenburg, M. (2026, accepted). “I don’t want to be a martyr”: Career disruption for space sciences graduate students. Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association. Los Angeles, California.

Robinson, J., Bowman, F., Adetunji, A., Olateru-Olagbegi, S., & Klemetsrud, B. (2026). Exploring the design and delivery of community relevant engineering design in elementary and middle school classrooms. Proceedings from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition, Charlotte, NC.

Adetunji, A., Bowman, F., Robinson, J., & Olateru-Olagbegi, S. (2026). Zone of self-efficacy development (ZSED) model: A framework for teacher growth in community relevant engineering design (CRED) implementation. Proceedings from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference & Exposition, Charlotte, NC.

Robinson, J., Macias, M., & Iveland, A. (2026). Making engineering meaningful: CRED framework lessons for rural elementary teachers. Poster to be presented at the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) National Conference. Anaheim, CA.

Robinson, J., Hunter, J., Raboin, S., Chinn, P., Potes, S., Medina, V., Trevino, L., Krakowski, D., Cavero, D., Erickson, S., Shein, P., & Upadhyay, B. (2026). Bridging cultures and knowledge: Fostering cross-cultural connections in Indigenized STEM education and research. Symposium accepted for presentation at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Annual International Conference, Seattle, WA.

Robinson, J., Tung, L., Shein, P., Sukinarhimi, P., Jaber, L., Khurshid, A., Chlebek, N., Smirnoff, D., Miller, J., Voss, S., Melton, J., Hanuscin, D., Kepler, C., & Ballard, H. (2026). Community Partnerships within Science Education Research: Building Trust and Reciprocity. Symposium accepted for presentation at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Annual International Conference, Seattle, WA.

Chinkondenji, P. (February 19, 2026). Refugee Encampment, School-aged Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Visual Critical Ethnography of Refugee Girls’ Educational Disruptions, Agency, and Resilience at Dzaleka Refugee Camp. Center for Educational Research and Training, School of Education Seminar, University of Malawi. Zomba, Malawi

Chamdimba, E. & Chinkondenji, P. (February 27, 2026). Qualitative Research through Collaborative- and Duo-ethnography: Ubuntu as a tool for shared knowledge-making. Center for Social Research, School of Education Seminar, University of Malawi. Zomba, Malawi

Public Media

Link, L. J. (2025-26). ND DPI Aspiring Principals’ Pipeline Grant Featured: Vonasek, J. (2025). Growing North Dakota’s Own. UND Today.

Laurie Matzke, ND DPI’s Chief of Program Development & Growth, spotlighted UND’s Aspiring Principal program in a National Center for Grow Your Own webinar held on January 13, 2026. Laurie highlights our collaborative successes, especially the value of Educational Leadership’s residency coaches, placement rate, and program quality.

Williams, L. A. (2026, January 21). Caring for elders in times of crisis: What families need to know. NCFR Nexus. https://www.ncfr.org/ncfr-nexus/winter-2026/caring-for-elders-in-times-of-crisis

Williams, L.A. (2026, February). I asked students whether they’d want to be teachers? They quickly responded, “Why would I?”.  The Conversation. I asked students whether they’d want to be teachers? They quickly responded, ‘Why would I?’.  Doi: https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.shm73smed