Dr. Eupha Jeanne Daramola has been named a UC Santa Barbara Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow for 2022-23. Daramola will work in the Gevirtz School’s Department of Education under the mentorship of Dr. Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj.
The Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program offers postdoctoral research fellowships and faculty mentoring to outstanding scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California. The contributions to diversity may include public service towards increasing equitable access in fields where women and minorities are under‐represented. In some fields, the contributions may include research focusing on underserved populations or understanding inequalities related to race, gender, disability or LGBT issues. The Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship awardees are selected from the pool of applicants for the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
“I am really honored to have this fellowship,” Daramola says, “and see it as a great opportunity to develop my dissertation research examining how marginalized people build power in K-12 education.” While her dissertation is titled Fever Dreams: The Promise and Limitations of BIPOC Parent Organizing During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic, she hopes her work will now expand to issues beyond the pandemic.
“I plan on extending the framework of Black Radical Imagination to see how it shapes K-12 policy reform,” she explains. “It’s a whole new set of literature to bring into education policy, and I want to see how it could shape visions and policies in the future.”
Daramola is particularly excited to work with Sattin-Bajaj. “I know Carolyn’s work, particularly her really excellent policy research with immigrant students and communities,” she points out. “She’s also published in journals I hope to publish articles in, so I’m hoping she can provide advice.”
Daramola finished her Ph.D. in Urban Education Policy at the University of Southern California in May 2022. Her research examines the ways in which racism and racial dynamics shape K-12 policy design and implementation. She uses qualitative methods to explore how these dynamics relate to community engagement, school discipline, school leadership, and school choice. Her research is informed by her time as a 9th-grade literature teacher in Philadelphia. Daramola has a Ed.M. in Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Human Development from Northwestern University.