Congratulations to these members of the NIU College of Education family!
Several NIU College of Education students and one staff member received 2024-25 Outstanding Graduate Student Awards from the Graduate School and were honored during an April 22 ceremony and reception in the Altgeld Hall auditorium.
These awards are given to one student from each program designated by the department as distinguished in research and scholarly activity.
Alex Owens, assistant director of the Office for Student Success, received the NIU Department of English’s award.
College of Education students
- Babatola Arogundade, Counseling and Higher Education
- Keith Barnes, Counseling and Higher Education
- Henry Dawson-Amoah, Counseling and Higher Education
- Taylor Dunaway, Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Caio Gomes, Educational Technology, Research and Assessment
- Matthew Herring, Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Youjung Stella Jung, Educational Technology, Research and Assessment
- Bethany Rohl, Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Alexandra Sandager, Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Jocelyn Schueler, Educational Technology, Research and Assessment
- Gretchen Sprinkle, Special and Early Education
- Duangkamon Winitkun, Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations
- Yixin Xu, Counseling and Higher Education
Three students were awarded the Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Fellowship:
- Loryn Kimbrough, Department of Counseling and Higher Education
- Deidre Milan, Department of Counseling and Higher Education
- Angela Thomas, Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations
Oliver Camacho, an assistant professor of Counselor Education at Purdue University Northwest, received the Graduate Council Student Awards Committee’s most outstanding dissertation of 2023-2024 in the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Education category.
Camacho, who earned his Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision in August 2023, wrote “Undocumented Students’ Voice, MTSS and School Counselors’ Mental Health Advocacy: A Transformative Mixed Methods Study.”
At Purdue University Northwest, his research focuses on culturally sustaining practices that assist school counselors, undocumented students’ mental health and LatinX mental health.
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NIU’s Presidential Commission on Race and Ethnicity honored three members of the Department of Counseling and Higher Education family during the 2025 Diversity and Inclusion Summit, held April 16 in the Regency Room of the Holmes Student Center.
Receiving 2025 Deacon Davis Awards were Gudrun Nyunt, associate professor; Tawanda Paul, a doctoral student in the Ed.D. in Higher Education program; and Kianna Graves, an M.S.Ed. student in Higher Education and Student Affairs.
- Gudrun Nyunt conducts research that centers equity and inclusion and focuses on three overlapping research strands: student mobility; higher education employment; and wellness of students and staff. Recent research has highlighted how institutional policies, practices and social norms grounded in white supremacy culture harm employees’ well-being and their retention in the field. She also serves as vice president of membership for ACPA College Student Educators International, an association that aspires toward being the most inclusive and community-driven association in higher education and student affairs by leading the profession in centering social justice, racial justice and decolonization as defining concepts now and in the foreseeable future.
- Tawanda Paul came to NIU as a graduate student in August 2009, seeking to help contribute to research in closing equity gaps. In August 2012, she joined NIU full time as a research associate in assessment to advance the conversation. She has looked for ways to become involved more meaningfully by joining groups and initiatives that support inclusion such as the Black Faculty and Staff Association, the Committee for Academic Equity and Inclusive Excellence, and the Presidential Commission on Race and Ethnicity. She plans to apply an equity lens to her dissertation project as she studies “The Integration of Equity-Minded Assessment Practices in Institutional Effectiveness.”
- Kianna Graves works as a graduate research assistant for the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, where she highlights women, gender and femininity within the Intersectionality Talks Series. Outside of work, she refines her research on equity in higher education, generational traumas, and self-care within the Black community, and presents her research at conferences across the country. Through continuous participation in professional development opportunities, she hopes to make higher education institutions a more equitable and comfortable space for all.
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Matthew P. Ison, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, is among the winners of the American Educational Research Association (AERA)’s 2025 Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award in recognition of the most outstanding article published in an AERA journal.
Ison shares the honor with Denisa Gándara (University of Texas at Austin), Hadis Anahideh (University of Illinois, Chicago) and Lorenzo Picchiarini (Interlake Mecalux) for their article, “Inside the Black Box: Detecting and Mitigating Algorithmic Bias Across Racialized Groups in College Student-Success Prediction,” published in AERA Open (Volume 10, July 2024).
Using nationally representative data and multiple machine learning approaches, the authors show that predictive models systematically used in higher education underperform for Black and Hispanic students, often misclassifying success and failure.
Their article exemplifies interdisciplinary inquiry – merging insights from data science, education policy, sociology, and racial equity studies – and offers an urgent call to action for institutions, researchers, practitioners and policymakers using predictive analytics in student success who are committed to equity in data-driven decision-making.
AERA presented the award April 24 at its annual meeting in Denver.
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