February 2017

Na’ilah Suad Nasir, an AERA Fellow and active AERA member, has been named the next president of the Spencer Foundation. Nasir, who also was an AERA Knowledge Forum Scholar, currently serves as vice-chancellor of equity and inclusion at the University of California, Berkeley.

At Berkeley, Nasir also holds the Birgeneau Chair in Educational Disparities in the Graduate School of Education and is jointly appointed in the African American Studies Department, where  has been on the faculty since 2008. She earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2000, and was a member of the faculty in the School of Education at Stanford University from 2000 to 2008. In 2016, Nasir won the AERA Division G Mentoring Award.

She will assume her new role on July 1. Dedicated to the support of high-quality research in education, the Spencer Foundation supports research in education and related disciplines, research training for education in the United States and abroad, and a variety of fellowship programs at the pre-doctoral, post-doctoral, and senior levels.

“On behalf of AERA and its members, I am pleased to congratulate Dr. Nasir on her new position,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “Our field of research has benefitted from uncommonly excellent leadership over the years. Michael McPherson has brought that and more over his 14 years serving as current president. As the only U.S. foundation dedicated solely to education research, Spencer will continue to thrive and grow under Nasir’s vision and commitment to innovative ideas and inquiry.”