Daniel Shephard joins as the Postdoctoral Fellow in International Sustainable Development
By Daniel Shephard
Daniel joined the team in 2023 and will be leading work related to the Sustainable Development Goals and education in contexts affected by large-scale student displacement. He completed his Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and has over a decade of experience working in international development. Since joining the team, he has presented research on the inclusion of refugees in education systems at the University of Oxford’s Education and Development Forum on “Education for Social and Environmental Justice”, the Comparative and International Education Society Western Conference on “Education, Migration, and Human Rights”, and the 8th annual seminar on “INVALSI data: a tool for teaching and scientific research.
In October, he published a paper in Behavioral Science & Policy demonstrating how asking students to draw something they value can improve their test performance, especially among displaced Syrian students with interrupted education. He is also working with a team of three teachers to co-develop learning materials for secondary school students on the Sustainable Development Goals. These learning materials will be finalized and shared for piloting and adaptation in 2024. Look out for updates on this work throughout 2024. Finally, through the project “Teachers Supporting Teachers” he will be facilitating an online, transnational community of practice on classroom strategies for teachers of displaced learners in the United States and globally. We will be sharing updates on both of these projects in 2024. If you are interested in learning more about these efforts you can contact Daniel directly at shephard@iu.edu.