By Laurel White

Two recent doctoral graduates of the UW–Madison School of Education were among 12 individuals nationwide chosen to receive 2026 NAEd/Spencer Research Fellowships.

Anshu Jain, who earned his doctoral degree from the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and Marino Miranda Noriega, who earned his doctoral degree from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, were both chosen to receive the funding. Supported by the National Academy of Education (NAEd) and the Spencer Foundation, the fellowships provide funding and professional development to early-career scholars whose projects address critical issues in the history, theory, or education at the national and international levels.

“The NAEd/Spencer Research Fellowship is special because it enables recent NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship awardees to continue enhancing their scholarship while pursuing postdoctoral employment amid challenging job markets,” said Okhee Lee, chair of the NAEd Professional Development Committee, in a prepared statement. “It is a privilege to work with our new fellows who will continue their scholarship and contribute to education research.”

Jain’s project, “Learning to be Legible,” examines how transmen in Hindi-speaking regions of India learn to be legible as transmen, as transgender, and as men in relation to themselves and the state in particular. The project looks specifically in and through spaces like digital community networks, local government offices, workplaces, and natal families. 

Jain is an ethnographer whose multidisciplinary research examines the lives of individuals in non-metropolitan, Hindi-speaking regions of northern India. He examines how factors including law, gender categories, and medical and communication technologies transform practices and change lives. 

Noriega’s project, “An Archive of Dissent. Son Jarocho, Countercultural Pedagogy, and the Politics of Authenticity in Post-1968 Mexico,” examines the Son Jarocho revival as a site of countercultural pedagogy in Veracruz, Mexico. The revival was a grassroots movement that reinvigorated interest in traditional music, dance, and poetry of the region.

Noriega is a historian of education specializing in modern Mexico. His research examines how educational problems such as illiteracy, secularization, and rural underdevelopment emerged as objects of state knowledge throughout the 20th century. 

Last month, six School of Education faculty and doctoral students were also awarded NAEd/Spencer Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships.