Dr. Shenika Hankerson is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Social Inquiry in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland-College Park. Her research explores the relationship between writing instruction and writing outcomes for African American Language (AAL)-speaking students, with a special interest in the opportunities that are created through Afrocentric and anti-racist writing pedagogies. Her scholarship has been recognized with awards from the Conference on College Composition and Communication and National Council of Teachers of English, and she has published or forthcoming work in Language Arts Journal of Michigan, AGEP Science Today Bulletin, and Talking Back: Senior Scholars Deliberate the Past, Present, and Future of Writing Studies.
Dr. Hankerson is the Principal Investigator and Director of RISE: Research Institute for Scholars in Education. RISE, funded through a $1.1 million grant from the US Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES), is designed to prepare underrepresented undergraduates from the University of Maryland, College Park and Bowie State University with research and career development training in education research. The overall aim of RISE is to increase diversity in the pool of students who pursue doctoral studies in a broad range of fields related to language and literacy.
For more information on RISE, visit: http://education.umd.edu/rise