Doctoral Student, Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and Comparative and International Education

Sharmistha Barat is a third-year doctoral student pursuing the dual-title doctoral degree in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and Comparative and International Education. She received her master’s degree in Early Childhood Education with a minor in counseling from the University of North Texas. Over the years, she has worked in multiple capacities: contact center technical specialist, an early childhood development teacher, a substitute teacher, and an adjunct instructor. Currently, she is exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion endeavors at Penn State. Her varied research interests include grass-roots governance models, higher education, strategic educational partnerships, workers’ education, Indigenous Peoples, DEI initiatives, and social justice issues.

Doctoral Student, Counselor Education & Supervision program

Nkenji Clarke, M.Ed, NCC (she/her) is a graduate of Spelman College and current doctoral student at the Pennsylvania State University in the Counselor Education & Supervision program. Nkenji received her Master of Education in Counselor Education from Penn State and graduated with her national counseling certification and a certification in professional school counseling. Nkenji has experience as a school counselor, career counselor, and clinical counselor in the secondary and post-secondary settings across disciplines. Nkenji has several years of experience working in rural and urban school settings with students of all backgrounds leading and collaborating spaces of equity and belonging.

Nkenji is currently interested in researching Black girls’ experiences across the education pipeline and the impact on their mental health well-being and antiracist school counseling practices for underserved student communities and how this impacts their holistic development. Advocating for access and justice, the opportunity to grow her research skills through this graduate assistantship will support her future endeavors of using her leadership roles to call out bias due to systemic disparities and cultivate spaces of belonging, being a school counselor educator writing about and implementing culturally responsive approaches in schools, and centering Black girls and women in research and counseling.

Doctoral Student, Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and Comparative and International Education

Rola is an Egyptian student in the dual-title doctoral degree in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education and Comparative and International Education. Before starting her studies in Penn State, she worked in the design and implementation of civic education, teacher training, youth empowerment and online learning projects, mainly targeting youth and families in public universities and schools, community-based organizations and refugee communities in North Africa and the Middle East. Her current research interests are education equity and access as well as education for social justice. Rola received her master’s degree in Comparative Middle East Politics and Societies (CMEPS) of the American University in Cairo (AUC) and Tübingen University in Germany. Her thesis focused on education politics in authoritarian contexts and understanding short-term authoritarian rebuilding processes through educational discourses. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Cairo University in Political Science and Economics.