Throughout the academic year, the Neag School is proud to share the latest achievements of its faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Explore their most recent promotions, awards, retirements, publications, and more.

A group of UConn researchers have received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a network to address knowledge gaps on the topic of emotional well-being, an emerging public health concern. This project is one of six, totaling more than $3.13 million in year one funding from the NIH.

As the world of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) becomes increasingly computational, promoting students’ computational thinking is essential to prepare them for future STEM careers. Neag School of Education assistant professor of learning sciences, Ido Davidesco, has received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a month-long computational thinking unit in high school biology classes.

Neag School assistant professor of learning sciences, Ido Davidesco, has received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a month-long computational thinking unit in high school biology classes. Davidesco will work with Neag School colleagues Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead, Christopher Rhoads, and John Settlage, as well as Aaron Kyle from Columbia University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Isabella “Bella” Gradante ’20 (ED), ’21 MA says she always knew she would pursue a career in education, having been raised by a family of educators and around schools her whole life. It wasn’t until she entered her master’s year in the Neag School’s Integrated Bachelor’s/Master’s (IB/M) program that she found what truly called her to the field: the practice of culturally relevant and sustaining teaching.

Kiana Foster-Mauro’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother watched with the 22-year-old elementary education major as she became the first in her family to graduate college. Nadeige Bailey, another first-generation graduate, said she cried on her couch last May as she watched her name flash across her computer screen “for like two seconds.” That was the culmination of her two-year, sports management graduate program.

At Connecticut’s State Education Resource Center (SERC) Dismantling Systemic Racism conference, West Hartford Public Schools Director of Equity Advancement Roszena Haskins was honored with the 2021 George Coleman Excellence in Equity award for her successful and ongoing district-wide work.

.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona praised new University of Connecticut graduates for their work in helping to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and urged them to use their uniqueness as their “superpower” to accomplish their career and life goals, in a recorded speech played Saturday at a virtual 2021 commencement. Cardona, Connecticut’s former education commissioner who earned graduate degrees at UConn, taped the speech Friday at UConn’s football stadium in East Hartford, the site of Saturday’s ceremony. The school awarded nearly 8,200 degrees.

Watch the virtual 2021 UConn Commencement ceremony, featuring remarks from four-time Neag School alumnus and U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

“Teachers have new fluency and technology,” says Michael Young, who coordinated the educational technology program at UConn’s Neag School of Education. “Students have new fluency. Society and legislatures have a sense that this is doable now, because we did it for a year.”