Boni Wozolek, Ph.D., Selected for Kent State Diversity Alumni Award

Boni Wozolek, Ph.D., inclusive excellence post-doctoral research fellow at Loyola University Maryland, was selected as the 2018 Diversity Alumni Award recipient for the Kent State University’s College of Education, Health and Human Services Ninth Annual Hall of Fame Awards.

Dr. Wozolek earned her Ph.D. from the School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. Her work considers questions of social justice, qualitative research methods, and teaching practices that focus on the examination of race, gender and sexual orientation in schools. Dr. Wozolek is the recipient of the 2012 James T. Sears Award for her paper The Nested Nature of M/othering: Complicating Curriculum Conversations and a 2016 Outstanding Dissertation Recognition Award from Division B (Curriculum Studies) of the American Educational Research Association for her doctoral dissertation, The Presence of Absence: The Negotiation of Space and Place for Students of color at a Predominantly White Suburban High School. 
 
In addition to her nearly 20 publications, over 50 national and international conference presentations, and numerous invited talks at both the community and institutional levels, Dr. Wozolek is on the executive committee for the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). In 2017 and 2018, Dr. Wozolek was invited by the American Educational Research Association’s Division B to run a pre-conference seminar that focused on the Black Lives Matter movement as it relates to questions of education and on disruptive qualitative methodologies. 
 
Dr. Wozolek is engaged in multiple grant-funded research projects including project with the Baltimore City Police Department where she is evaluating the effectiveness of the Juvenile Diversion Project, an evaluation of institutional-community partnerships in Baltimore with the Ann E. Casey Foundation, and a private research study with queer students of color in urban schools that connects students with a National Geographic School in Madagascar around issues of identity.  

The College of EHHS will honor Wozolek and six other distinguished alumni.

The awards ceremony will take place on Friday, October 26, 2018 from 6:00 – 9:30 p.m. at the Kent State Hotel and Conference Center. For ticket information, please contact Anne Alfano at Kent State University at 330-672-0108 or aalfano@kent.edu.