Join Dean Daniel Schwartz, enjoy hearty hors d'oeuvres, refreshing beverages, live music, and find out how our 2017 GSE Alumni Excellence in Education honorees are making the world a better place.

ABOUT THE 2019 GSE ALUMNI EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION AWARD HONOREES

Alexandra Bernadotte, MA ’07
Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies
Founder & CEO, Beyond12
Bernadotte supports first-generation students who struggle with navigating the transition to college. She collaborates with schools and colleges to provide students with the academic and social support they need to succeed. Using virtual human coaches, a mobile app, and a predictive analytics engine that connects K-12 and higher education student data, Beyond 12 has coached over 8,000 students and tracked the progress of more than 100,000. By demonstrating that all students can graduate from college, Bernadotte is altering the consensus definition of student success in education and policy circles in the US.

EARLY CAREER AWARD
Irene Castillon, MA ’10
Stanford Teacher Education Program
Assistant Principal, History Teacher, Cristo Rey San José Jesuit High School
Castillon is known for cultivating and mentoring teachers through rich coaching and instruction. She uses her voice as a Heinemann Fellow and as an emerita member of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics to advocate for and design research that reveals best practices for teaching first generation, low-income students. A dynamic and passionate educator, Castillon helps her students and teacher colleagues find their voices as learners and leaders and realize their fullest potential.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, PhD ’84
Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education
Professor Emerita, Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education in Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison
President, National Academy of Education
Ladson-Billings, an early proponent of critical race theory and culturally relevant pedagogy, demonstrates that one can be both a scholar and an activist, exemplifying the meaning of the term public intellectual. Her research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She is recognized for her significant contributions to our understanding of the obstacles confronting all students of color.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Larry Cuban, PhD ’74
Social Sciences Education
Professor Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Education
Cuban, whose scholarship has amassed more than 35,000 citations, illuminated the relationship between school structure, culture, and change for more than a generation. He began his 45-year career in education as a high school social studies teacher. As a scholar-teacher, he models the best of what a teacher can be for his students and colleagues across the academy. Named Teacher of the Year seven times at the GSE, Cuban is known for an extraordinary intellect that shaped discourse and advanced knowledge across multiple sub-fields of education.