UNC School of Education faculty members Matthew Springer, Ph.D., and Thurston “Thad” Domina, Ph.D., were each included in the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings of the top 200 university-based scholars who did the most in the last year to shape educational practice and policy. Springer and Domina ranked No. 170 and No. 171, respectively.
The 2024 ranking — led by Rick Hess, AEI senior fellow and director of educational policy — marks the 14th annual listing of some of the most recognizable names in education.
Springer, the Robena and Walter E. Hussman, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Education Reform, is an interdisciplinary scholar who has spent more than two decades studying educational innovations and policies. His research broadly focuses on strategies for improving system effectiveness and access to educational opportunities and aims to advance policymaking and practice by conducting large-scale studies in partnership with districts and states that produce actionable findings.
With colleagues at Carolina, Springer co-leads a multi-disciplinary initiative designed to evaluate and elevate high-leverage programs and policies critical to the state’s efforts to increase educational opportunity and economic development in North Carolina. In 2023, it was announced that he and faculty member Lauren Sartain, Ph.D., would help to lead an effort with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction that includes a research recovery network, with North Carolina universities and school districts, designed to address Covid-related disruptions to learning.
Domina, the Robert Wendell Eaves Sr. Distinguished Professor in Educational Leadership, has spent more than 20 years documenting educational inequalities and searching for educational policies and strategies that help to create a more just, equitable, and inclusive society. A sociologist by training, Domina has conducted research at nearly every level of education — from early childhood to undergraduate education — using a range of analytic tools to understand how families influence children’s educational opportunities, ways schools accommodate learners’ diverse needs, and the consequences of educational experiences for child development and the transition to adulthood.
In 2023, Domina — and co-authors Andrew M. Penner, Ph.D., and Emily K. Penner, Ph.D., of the University of California, Irvine — released “Schooled and Sorted: How Educational Categories Create Inequality.” The book explores disparities created by a ubiquitous practice in education — categorization — and offers strategies to work against those disparities.
The 2024 ranking includes the top 150 finishers from the previous year, augmented by at-large nominees chosen by a selection committee whose 39 members also appear on the 2024 list. Tressie McMillan Cottom, Ph.D., a faculty member in the UNC School of Information and Library Science, also appears in the ranking and served on the selection committee.
The list comprises university-based scholars who focus primarily on educational questions and have a formal university affiliation. Each scholar was scored in eight categories, which included: Google Scholar score; authored, co-authored, or edited books; highest-ranked book on Amazon; education press mentions; web mentions; newspaper mentions; syllabus points; and Congressional record mentions.
For the full ranking, visit aei.org. To learn more about the committee, selection process, and methodology, visit edweek.org.