Research Associate Callie Edwards Named 2021 NC State Impact Scholar

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation Research Associate Callie Edwards, Ph.D., has been named a 2021 NC State University Impact Scholar. Edwards will be in the first cohort of the Strengthening The Impact of Research (STIR) program and is one of 12 selected participants out of nearly 50 applicants.

The STIR program seeks to enhance NC State’s capacity to design and conduct research with broad impacts on society. Scholars will attend five 90-minute workshop sessions designed to strengthen their capacity to create innovative research impacts on society and write more competitive grant proposals. They are also expected to design and implement their own research project and conduct a Research Impacts workshop within their departments. Scholars will receive $1,000 to support project expenses.

Edwards is an educational researcher with a multidisciplinary background in public health, workforce development, learning outcomes assessment, program evaluation and student affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in educational research and policy analysis from the NC State College of Education and an M.P.H. in health behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Edwards has significant research experience centering around underrepresented populations, such as women and communities of color, in health, education and STEM. Her dissertation explored the counternarratives of high-achieving Black male engineering majors and earned the NC State College of Education’s 2018 Higher Education Dissertation of the Year Award and an honorable mention from the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education’s 2019 Dissertation of the Year Award selection committee.

Since 2018, Edwards has served as a research associate at the Friday Institute. In this role, she evaluates educational initiatives using quantitative and qualitative methodologies and leads the planning and day-to-day operations for eight research and evaluation projects. Additionally, a major aspect of her work is developing and maintaining effective research-practice partnerships (RPPs) with schools and districts.

Edwards serves on the steering committee of the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships (NNERPP) and is also the project manager of the Friday Institute Educational Research and Evaluation Internship Program for Undergraduate Students. In 2020, she was nominated for the NC State University Award for Excellence—the most prestigious honor bestowed upon non-faculty employees.

Before joining the Friday Institute, Edwards served as a research specialist at the North Carolina Department of Commerce and as a research assistant in the Office of Assessment at NC State.

This story originally appeared on the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation website.