Researchers

Ana Luisa Rubio-Jimenez

alr50@cam.ac.uk | I am an Educational Psychologist who graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). I am currently a PhD candidate in Education at the University of Cambridge. Throughout my career I have participated in research projects on educational dialogue and inclusion. In my PhD project I explore how the self-determination of Mexican young adults with intellectual disability can be enhanced through a dialogic pedagogy. I have shared my findings in international conferences and journal papers. I have worked with teachers and students with special educational needs and disabilities in Mexico and England. I have also collaborated with ‘Cambridge Student Community Action’ and ‘The Brilliant Club’ in the UK and ‘Capys-Contruyendo Puentes’ in Mexico. http://see more

Alexandre da Trindade

ad988@cam.ac.uk | I am a Brazilian doctoral student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, working with Professor Susan L. Robertson and hold a Master’s degree in Global Prosperity at University College London (UCL). My research examines the role of higher education, which goes beyond the traditional functions of teaching and research and contributes to the development of alternative futures (e.g., Buen Vivir, human flourishing), social justice, democratic societies and emancipated individuals. I am a founding member of CLAREC and a member of the “Knowledge, Power and Politics” (KPP) and the “Decolonizar a América Latina e seus Espaços” (¡DALE!) research groups. I hold a degree and an MBA in marketing from the ESPM/SP in Brazil, and has almost twenty years of professional experience working with innovation and technology projects in large companies and through international partnerships and networks. http://see more

Julia Hayes

jh2061@cam.ac.uk | I am an Educational Psychologist, trainer and international consultant in inclusive education who gained ESRC funding to research the education of children with disabilities in Colombia. Now in my final year of my PhD, my research has explored how an innovative Colombian model of education, called Escuela Nueva, addresses the education of children with disabilities in rural contexts. Questioning the application of Northern models of inclusive education in countries of the Global South without reference to differences in context, culture or local priorities, it has been fascinating to better understand how this homegrown model, which appears inclusive by design, addresses the complexity of educating children with disabilities in rural contexts. Additionally, I illustrate conferences, live, and illustrated the Global Disability Summit in 2018 and the UNESCO conference on inclusive education in Cali, Colombia (2019). http://see more

Rocío Fernández Ugalde

raf64@cam.ac.uk | I am a Chilean doctoral researcher at Cambridge interested in educational policies and critical studies in education. I graduated as an educational psychologist from the University of Chile where I collaborated in research projects related to teachers’ work ant their autonomy in different school settings. I have also participated in governmental teacher education projects and research-practice partnerships between school and universities. In my PhD project, I examine the global and national policy ensemble of teacher accountability policies in Chile over time, for which I draw on a critical realist stance and a critical socio-spatial lens anchored in state theory.

Consuelo Béjares Casanueva

cb2018@cam.ac.uk | I am a PhD student interested in sociology of education and critical youth studies. I graduate in Sociology in Chile and studied a master’s in social policy at the University of Melbourne. I have worked for several years in the intersection of research and policy to inform the advancement of equity principles in school education policies, mainly in the areas of privatization, class segregation and civic knowledge. Currently, I am looking at how young people living in marginalized urban areas of Santiago experience inclusion/exclusion, belonging and citizenship in times of rapid social change. I use an ethnographic and participatory methods approach. http://see more

Elisa de Padua

med40@cam.ac.uk | I am a Psychologist, and educational assessment is my main academic and professional interest. I am now finishing a PhD in Education at the University of Cambridge. My research purpose is to analyse, through a multiple-case study, classroom formative assessment practices of reading comprehension in Chile in vulnerable contexts. This analysis aims to contribute to professional teachers’ reflections about formative assessment and students’ development as readers and to identify specific challenges that need to be considered when designing support resources for classroom assessment and opportunities for teachers’ professional development. http://see more

Paula Teixeira Castro

pt411@cam.ac.uk | I am a doctoral researcher in Education at Cambridge University, UK, where I also completed my MPhil in Education focusing on Educational Leadership and School Improvement. As a Brazilian educator with over 20 years of professional practice I have experienced the invaluable richness of living different contextual realities and positions within school settings, from the classroom to senior leadership, which has given me the opportunity to both participate in, and experience, teacher development programs, as well as designing and implementing programmes of this nature for bilingual educators. Melding these experiences with my interest in understanding the ways teachers connect and build knowledge collaboratively, my research looks specifically at the affordances of Lesson Study in classroom learning research. I am also interested in how school change can be enhanced through networked communities of practice and purpose.

Miriam Broeks

mglb3@cam.ac.uk | I am a Peruvian-Dutch education researcher interested in social integration, policy analysis and evaluation. Growing up in Peru and experiencing public and private schooling triggered my interest to better understand how education systems can provide quality education to all children. As a part-time PhD student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, I am researching factors that influence educational inequalities affecting indigenous pupils in Peru. Using existing longitudinal data and a mixed method approach I hope to contribute to the knowledge base to strengthen education provision in Peru.

Heidy M. Perez-Cordero

hmp54@cam.ac.uk | I am a Puerto Rican-Dominican PhD student-researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. My research project explores the possibility of a new identity or category for language teachers, the Accidental Language Teacher. The exploration will be conducted through a series of applied drama workshops. My interests include teacher’s training & wellbeing, decolonizing education, creative research, teaching artist development, language teaching, and the correlation between identity and pedagogy. I am an active member of Decolonising Language Education Collective (DLEC), Second Language Education Group (SLEG), Cambridge Research in Community Language Education(CRiCLE), and Cambridge Community School Leadership Forum . http://see more

Juliana Spadotto

julianaspadot@gmail.comg | My name is Juliana Spadotto and I am from Brazil. After having graduated in Artistic Education with a degree in Performing Arts, I worked for several years as an actress, director and drama teacher in Brazil. Recently I attained an MPhil in Education (Arts, Creativity and Education) at the University of Cambridge. My research focuses on theatre as a tool for social transformation. To illustrate my research I looked at a collective theatre group in Brazil that works in an underprivileged peripheral area of the biggest capital of the country. I am interested in political theatre that challenges the status quo in society bringing awareness to the participants and the audience. My passion is teaching, learning, acting and I have also fallen in love with rowing since I first arrived in Cambridge. http://see more

Anna Maria Del Fiorentino

amd218@cantab.ac.uk | In my doctoral research I will analyse how the obtention of a higher education degree reshaped the cultural identities of the first generation of university entrants in Brazil during recent governmental programmes to broadening access to higher education in the country. I will focus on women that were benefited by those policies as many were able to break the historical cycle that led their mothers and grandmothers into paid reproductive work, after obtaining a university degree. I will examine their class positions, identity, and subjectivities based on Bourdieusian social theory to explore how the cultural capital inherited from these women’s working-class parents, together with experiences of discrimination, affected their sense of belonging at university and soon afterwards, while entering the labour market. See more

Magali Ramos Jarrin

mpr44@cam.ac.uk | I am an Ecuadorian PhD student with a B.A in Integrated Social Sciences from Jacobs University and Msc. in Social Policy from LSE. Worked as Undersecretary for Teachers Professional Development at the Ministry of Education of Ecuador and collaborated with the World Bank, Inter American Development Bank and RISE Programme Grants.Awarded UNESCO GEM Report Fellowship. My research focuses on understanding student trajectories from school to university looking at public expenditure of education in Ecuador, linking historical administrative data for the first time to track the extent public investment in education is concentrated in the most privileged groups of society. See more

Adam Woodage

ajw305@cam.ac.uk | I am a mature undergraduate student in the Faculty of Education, which means that I spend about six months a year reading, writing and thinking about education through an interdisciplinary lens. Before Cambridge, I worked on minority rights and civil activism in the South Caucasus, and for an Indian EdTech startup, using low-bandwidth technology to improve English teaching in low-income and rural schools. In Cambridge, part of my research is focussed on the future role of the university and schools, in the face of a changing climate. I am particularly interested in Latin American conceptions of the university (pluriversity?).

María Fernanda Rodríguez

mfr32@cam.ac.uk | I am a Peruvian sociologist with a master’s degree in Education, Globalisation, and International Development. After working in educational research and public policy in Peru for the past years, I am now starting a Ph.D. in Education at Cambridge. My work has focused on researching educational topics from a sociological perspective, especially in issues involving inequality, reform and change in educational systems, pupil mobility and segregation, and topics in private education. My MPhil thesis, which received the Best Dissertation Award from the Faculty of Education at Cambridge, explored how the debate on the regulation of private education in Peru revealed contradictory ways of seeing education that are located in market and civil orders of worth. My doctoral research aims to advance the analysis of the private education phenomena in Peru and the region from new avenues of analysis. http://see more

Regina Guzmán Correa

rg661@cam.ac.uk | I am a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, looking at political settlement approaches to education policy as it relates to access and equity. I am from Mexico but grew up in the United States and have been working in the Tanzanian education space for the last 10 years, making my interest in education wide-ranging and broad-based. My academic background is in art history, diplomacy, and development, and through my doctoral research I hope to apply some of this Interdisciplinarity to understanding how education policy in Tanzania, specifically, but across the Global South more generally, is shaped and enacted.\

Paulina Pérez-Duarte Mendiola

pp530@cam.ac.uk | I am a PhD student supervised by Paul Ramchandani, looking into children’s perspectives of ‘Specialised Play’ in paediatric-healthcare-settings in the United Kingdom. My career as a clinical paediatrician and medical anthropologist, has focussed on improving the holistic outcomes of children’s health and the human rights of hospitalised children.My previous research, as a paediatrician and medical anthropologists, explored the profound impact of ‘Play’ on sick-children’s development, learning and healthcare experiences. The objectives of my doctoral research are to carefully understand and evaluate children’s perspectives of ‘Specialised Play’ in paediatric-healthcare-settings and discover ‘how’ and ‘why’ it has the potential to transform a child’s hospital experience, as well as the potential benefits for their developmental-wellbeing. http://see more

Othneil Blackwood

osvb2@cantab.ac.uk | I am a scholar-practitioner from Jamaica with an MPhil in Education from the University of Cambridge, where I studied how individuals and underserved communities can learn and grow through military schooling. As a civil servant in the Jamaican military for almost two decades, I have served in a lot of different roles, including infantry, special operations, and military education and training. My research interests include military education and training, leader development, and national security in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. As a leader, writer, and thinker, I am committed to uplifting Jamaica and making the world a better place for everyone. http://see more

Luwei Bai

lb950@cam.ac.uk | I’m an MPhil student in Educational Leadership and School Improvement at the University of Cambridge, as well as a senior education consultant with 10-year experience. I’m researching teacher professional development and leadership from a constructivist perspective, and my current research interest lies particularly in digital leadership in TPD and developing TPD through collaborative learning. I want to devote myself to educational research and make a little difference in the world.

Sebastián Ansaldo

sa850@cam.ac.uk | I am a Chilean PhD researcher, with a background in communication studies, media and education. I am interested in the multidisciplinary intersections and interactions between the fields of media and education. Currently I am interested in mediatization research focused on the educational field, conducting a comparative study that seeks to explore the practices and visions of schoolteachers from England and Chile regarding media and technology. With the study I want to analyse how mediatization is reshaping and transforming teachers’ work and their social relations, and what does this mean for teacher`s knowledge re(production), identity and culture. I apply a critical realist approach and a qualitative methodology. http://see more

Dina Fajardo

ddf24@cam.ac.uk | I am a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Education. I believe that research should be used to inform public policy and practice, to improve the education and wellbeing of all children. I am passionate about my country, Mexico, and about the role that education plays in building a better society. My Ph.D. research project investigates the use of integrated playful pedagogies to develop children’s skills in Mexico. Additionally, I am interested in the use of technology and educational innovations to enhance education and to improve education for everyone.

Sophia M. D’Angelo

sdangelo15@gmail.com | I am a fourth-year PhD student whose research examines the role that national and subnational contexts and cultures play in shaping teaching and learning in the Dominican Republic. I employ a ‘building on strengths’ approach by centring the voices of teachers and students, or those most intimately involved in everyday pedagogical practices. I am a teacher, teacher trainer, and educational consultant for various international development organisations, including Overseas Development Institute, the EdTech Hub, Chemonics, and the World Bank. I have supported research initiatives as well as creative projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. http://see more

Ana Laura Trigo Clapés

alt56@cam.ac.uk | I am from Mexico City and I graduated as a psychologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. I collaborated in research projects related to classroom dialogue, dialogic interactions in educational contexts and the intervention of adolescents diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. For the last four years I have been in Cambridge, I have studied how autistic students in mainstream primary classrooms in the UK participate in class discussions and how teachers support their participation. The aim of my PhD project is developing adjusted teaching strategies that support autistic students’ participation in classroom dialogue, considering students’ communication characteristics and preferences.  http://see more