Mowana Research Lab

Mowana is the Setswana word for baobab tree. The massive trunk of this tree gives way to what appear as a burst of roots, reaching toward the sky. Growing slowly but steadily, this wondrously bizarre tree survives, and thrives, in the harshest of conditions. They draw in whatever water and nutrients are available and turn them—against all odds—into something solid on which surrounding life depends.

Our Mowana Research Lab is a community, one which strives to be something solid on which each of us can depend. Facilitated by Sarah Dryden-Peterson, we come together as an intellectual community of doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting fellows to share ideas around our research, develop collaborations, and engage in professional development.

Sarah Dryden-Peterson

Professor at HGSE & Director of Refugee REACH

Sarah Dryden-Peterson is a Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She leads a research program that focuses on the connections between education and community development, specifically the role that education plays in building peaceful and participatory societies. Her work seeks to connect practice, policy, and research and is strengthened through sustained collaborations with UN agencies, NGOs, and communities. Raised in Toronto, Canada, Dryden-Peterson has taught primary and middle school in Madagascar, South Africa, and the United States.­

Elizabeth Adelman

Graduated Doctoral Student & Past Postdoctoral Fellow

Elizabeth Adelman is a Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Education Research Advisor for the International Rescue Committee. Adelman’s research explores the intersection of global strategies, national policies, and local experiences as they relate to the provision of education to students in conflict-affected settings. Her current work focuses on the experience of and supports for teachers in conflict settings and how they understand their roles and responsibilities with regards to refugee and displaced learners in their classrooms.

Devika Agrawal

Doctoral Student

Devika Agrawal is a presidential scholar and doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her primary research looks at South Asian epistemologies and holistic education as a means of grappling with uncertainty. She ethnographically explores how alternative schools resist the sociopolitical crises created by modern schooling. A former History teacher for over four years across India and Mexico, Devika is deeply interested in curriculum design and meaningful social change. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley, where she worked under Ex-Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, and has undertaken various research projects for the Inter-American Development Bank and Innovations for Poverty Action.

Maya Alkateb-Chami

Doctoral Student

Maya Alkateb-Chami is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studies the role of schooling in fostering just futures—particularly in relation to language of instruction policies in multilingual contexts. She was formerly the Managing Director of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, working at the intersection of education, advocacy, and research. Prior to that, she served as the Executive Director of Jusoor, a global organization which supports Syrian students in pursuing education despite barriers of conflict and displacement. She holds an M.Sc. from Indiana University, Bloomington and a B.A. from Damascus University.

Alysha Banerji

Doctoral Student

Alysha Banerji is a Ph.D student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on the role of higher education institutions in supporting refugees. Before coming to Harvard, Alysha worked in college access in the US, school leadership training in India, and as an Assistant Education Specialist at UNESCO Santiago in Chile. Alysha holds a BA in Philosophy from Hamilton College, an M.S.Ed in International Education Development from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a recipient of the Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship Programme. 

Michelle Bellino

Associate Professor, University of Michigan

Michelle Bellino is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Education. Her research centers on the intersections between education and youth civic development in contexts impacted by armed conflict and forced displacement. In her work, she traces how experiences with violence, asylum, and peace and justice processes influence young people’s participation in schools and society, future aspirations, as well as educational access and inclusion. She draws on ethnographic methods and youth participatory action research to ask how young people construct understandings of justice and injustice, while shaping an evolving sense of themselves as local and global civic actors.

Click here to learn more about Michelle’s work.

Alexandra Chen

Graduated Doctoral Student

Alexandra Chen is a child trauma specialist serving refugees in conflict and post-conflict zones. Alexandra has been working with war-affected children and their families in and from the Middle East and Africa for over a decade, most recently as advisor to UN agencies on the Syria crisis. Alexandra's doctoral work studied pathways connecting trauma and stress with refugee children’s cognitive functioning and mental health. Alexandra is currently partnering with the UN, World Bank, government ministries, and non-profit agencies to design early childhood and mental health interventions for victims of sexual violence and torture in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey.

Amy Cheung

Graduated Doctoral Student

Amy Cheung is a Lecturer in the Writing and Communication Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines identity development and the relation of identity(ies) to the experience of education and civic inclusion. In her research, Amy uses qualitative methods to deeply attend to research participants and center their lived experiences. Outside of the university, Amy is an advocate for Boston's Chinatown, having variously served as a non-profit professional, board member, and volunteer in the community.

Vidur Chopra

Graduated Doctoral Student & Past Postdoctoral Fellow

Vidur Chopra is the Bruce S. Goldberg Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Teachers College, Columbia University and a volunteer member of the REACH team. His research is cross-disciplinary, at the intersections of education, forced migration, and citizenship studies. He examines how education enables and complicates global, local, and transnational understandings of membership and belonging for youth affected and displaced by conflict, including youths’ conceptions of citizenship and membership and their strategies to navigate deeply unequal structures.

Sandra Georges El Hadi

Doctoral Student

Sandra Georges El Hadi is pursuing her Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching at Harvard. Her research interests lie in developmental psychology, language acquisition, and early childhood education. Her professional experience has been primarily in the field of international development, having worked with United Nations agencies, governments, and multilateral organizations. Prior to these roles, Sandra was an English Language instructor at the American University of Beirut. She received her Master’s in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology from the University of Oxford and pursued her undergraduate studies in Political Science and English at the American University of Beirut.

Bibi-Zuhra Faizi

Graduated Doctoral Student

Dr. Faizi is a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines community-based education in settings of conflict and displacement with a focus on Afghanistan. She is passionate about culturally-informed and sustainable educational opportunities beyond standardized models for marginalized children. Dr. Faizi holds a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Colorado Boulder, an M.A. in International Political Economy from the Colorado School of Mines, an Ed.M. in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an Ed.D. in Culture, Communities, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Harvard, Dr. Faizi served as an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and as an editor for the Harvard Educational Review.

Martha C. Franco

graduated Doctoral Student

Martha C. Franco is a doctoral candidate and a Graduate Student Associate at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. Her dissertation examines the educational experiences of Central American unaccompanied youth. Additionally, she uses historical methods to analyze United States court cases, failed congressional bills, and other federal policies and their role in producing the legal precarity unaccompanied youth experience. She is the co-author of the book Undocumented Migration which offers a comparative view of undocumented migration in the United States and Europe in particular. Martha holds and Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an A.B. in History and Ethnic Studies from Brown University.

Abhinav Ghosh

Doctoral Student

Abhinav Ghosh is a doctoral student of education at Harvard University. He is interested in exploring the relationship between learning and the politics of education policy and data, with a specific focus on low- and middle-income countries. Currently, Abhinav is examining the prioritization of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) in Indian education, and how it is influencing learning experiences and inequities. Abhinav’s research is informed by his prior work as a teacher and curriculum consultant in India. He holds an MS in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is the co-chair of the Harvard Educational Review.

Orelia Jonathan

Doctoral Student

Orelia is a fourth-year Ph.D. student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her research focuses on history education, teacher agency, and pedagogy in conflict/post-conflict settings. Orelia’s research seeks to examine how teachers in South Sudan, a country riddled by war and ethnic tensions, teach South Sudan’s past. She is currently a Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Prior to Harvard, she obtained her Master’s of Science in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and holds a B.A. in History and African-American Studies from Wesleyan University.

Click here to learn more about Orelia’s work.

Hania Mariën

Doctoral Student

Hania Mariën is a doctoral student in the Culture, Institutions, and Society concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Her work focuses on Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) with 3rd-5th grade students, and how they make sense of power and act on (in)justice in the context of these projects. She co-leads this work with Anna Kirby, also a doctoral student at HGSE, through Imagining More Just Futures, a social justice education project for upper elementary school students and their families. Hania is also interested in creative and arts-based research methods, and is constantly looking for new ways to integrate creativity, fun, and joy into her academic work.

Nicolás Riveros Medelius

Doctoral Student

Nicolás is a Ph.D. student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Nicolás has participated in a wide range of educational projects in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. Before his doctoral studies, he worked for the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), and for Fe y Alegría. In his research, he uses a mixed methods approach to study the role that schools play in the processes of child and youth political socialization. Nicolás holds a B.A and Master’s in political science from Universidad de los Andes, and an Ed.M. in International Education Policy from HGSE.

Bethany Mulimbi

Graduated Doctoral Student

Bethany Mulimbi has worked in the field of education for fifteen years. She has an extensive background in Southern Africa, most recently as the research project coordinator for the Botswana Educational Research Association (BERA). In this role, she worked with colleagues from the University of Botswana to develop intervention projects supporting quality public education across Botswana. She has worked as an independent consultant for the Roger Federer Foundation’s early childhood initiatives in Southern Africa, as well as for UNESCO & UNODC, developing a handbook for primary school educators on teaching for the Rule of Law. In July 2021 she joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a Foreign Service Education Officer.

Click here to learn more about Bethany’s work.

Jessica Peng

Postdoctoral Fellow

Jessica Peng is a Dean’s Global Education Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Built upon her experiences living and working in different parts of the Asia-Pacific region throughout her life, Jessica’s ongoing research takes the increasingly codified idea that “the future is Asian” as an entry point into exploring how everyday practices of speculation amongst policymakers and everyday people shape what development initiatives and educational policies are pursued and how people pursue them. Her current work examines Indonesia’s efforts to unleash its potential as a global economic superpower, key to which is a focus on developing “skilled” youth labor forces across some of the most historically marginalized areas of the countries. This multi-sited ethnography examines how large-scale policy efforts to revitalize vocational education and build localized and “skilled” youth labor forces within rural contexts compete with historically cultivated community outlooks on the purposes and values of vocational education, labor migration, and state development.

Click here to learn more about Jessica’s work.

Catherine Pitcher

Doctoral Student

Catherine is a doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has over 10 years of experience in education in the US in roles that range from special education teacher to instructional coach to department head to educational game designer. She started working in Palestine in 2017, first teaching and then designing and implementing educational programming. Currently, she is working on research to understand how Palestinian youth think about and build their futures and continues to lead programming in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. She holds an Ed.M. from Harvard in International Education Policy.

Santiago Pulido-Gómez

Doctoral Student

Santiago is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on understanding how organizational culture in schools influences the ways in which teachers learn and develop. His primary region of focus is Latin America. 

Prior to his doctoral studies, Santiago was a research fellow for the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and also served as a policy analyst for different Ministries in his home country, Colombia. Santiago holds an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an MSc. and a BS in Economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia.

Celia Reddick

graduated Doctoral Student

Celia Reddick is a Ph.D. candidate in Education at Harvard University and a 2021-2022 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow. Her research examines the ways that policymakers, educators, and refugee families navigate educational inclusion in settings of first asylum. Her current research is focused on language-in-education in schools implementing refugee educational inclusion, and the ways that language policies and practices at school shape refugee families’ experiences of exile and their aspirations for the future. Celia’s research is informed by her work as a teacher, teacher-educator, and curriculum developer in Uganda, Rwanda, and the United States.

Click here to learn more about Celia’s work.

Natasha Robinson

Past Visiting Student

Natasha Robinson is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, Department of Education. She is interested in post-conflict education systems, and in particular the role of history education in transitional justice. Her Ph.D. research was an ethnography of four history classrooms in Cape Town, South Africa, where she explored how the legacies of apartheid were taught to students with different racial identities. She is currently writing a book entitled History Education for Transitional Justice in South Africa: Learning Legacies, to be published by Routledge in 2022. Natasha’s latest project looks at the intersection of history education and the “culture wars” in the UK.

Hiba Salem

Past Postdoctoral Fellow

Hiba Salem is a researcher in education and forced displacement, holding a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Cambridge. She recently completed a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge focusing on Syrian refugees’ experiences of learning in Jordan. Hiba has also acted as consultant on numerous evaluations and assessments on education in emergencies.

Tim Williams

Past Postdoctoral Fellow

Timothy Williams is a past postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His work centers on the wellbeing of children, including their education and protection. Timothy’s research includes a decade-long investigation into education policy in Rwanda. This work received the 2020 Dudley Seers Prize for best paper published in the Journal of Development Studies and the 2018 Joyce Cain Award from the Comparative and International Education Society of North America. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, The New England Journal of Medicine, World Development, and Comparative Educational Review. He currently teaches at Boston College School of Social Work and works as a senior associate for the Proteknon Group.

Click here to learn more about Tim’s work.