AERA Recognizes Dr. Rachel Endo

Rachel Endo, Dean and Professor of the School of Education, is the recipient of the 2023 Distinguished Researcher Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA’s) Research on the Education of Asian Pacific Americans Special Interest Group. The award is presented to “a scholar whose program of research has had a significant impact on our understanding of Asian Americans and/or Pacific Islanders and education.”

A group of nominators wrote:” Endo’s scholarly accomplishments have led to direct impacts in closing equity and opportunity gaps across institutional contexts and settings in K-12 and higher education, and specifically, has increased much-needed awareness of Asian American education in AERA and beyond,” and “She has made many innovative contributions to the study of education that span the areas of Asian American education, bilingual education, multicultural literature, parental engagement, and the unique experiences of teachers of color.”

Endo’s primary research interests are Asian American education; language and literacy education; transnational studies of Asian America; and urban education. Among other publications, she is the author of “The Incarceration of Japanese Americans in the 1940s: Literature for the High School Classroom,” winner of a Skipping Stones 2020 Award for Excellent Teaching Resource, and widely used among educators at various levels to address urgent issues with their students regarding the state of civil liberties, democracy, and race relations in the U.S. in challenging sociopolitical times.

Over her career, Endo has received two other AERA awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Mentorship Award through Division G/Social Contexts of Education and the 2017 Inaugural Don T. Nakanishi Excellence in Mentorship Award from the Research on the Education of Asian and Pacific Americans.