Danielle Filipiak

Biography

Danielle Filipiak is an Associate Professor of English and Coordinator for the Secondary English Education program. Her scholarly interests sit at the nexus of youth critical (including digital) literacies, sociocultural literacy studies, and practitioner and participatory research approaches.  These interests grew from her experiences as a classroom teacher and community organizer in Detroit, MI and later honed as she partnered with New York City youth and teachers across the duration of her PhD at Columbia University to advance initiatives focused on educational justice. Her work seeks to advance socially just, culturally sustaining literacy curricula and pedagogies that amplify the voices, brilliance, and ingenuity of youth from historically marginalized communities.

Towards this end, much of her work has focused on intergenerational, youth-engaged research and activism and the multiple literacies and identities forged within such contexts.  With scholarship featured in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English; English Journal; English Teaching, Practice & Critique; Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy; and a special co-edited issue of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, her research aims to disrupt discourses and structures of injustice and to broker transformative educational experiences that robustly hold space for the brilliance, dreams, desires and concerns of young people. Recently, she was awarded the Early Career Award through AERA’s Teaching and Teacher Education SIG (Division K), and the Purves Award through the National Council for the Teachers of English (Honorable Mention), which recognizes scholarship likely to have the greatest impact on educational practice.