Tracy Steffes, Professor of Education and History, researches and teaches about the history of education governance, policy, and politics with a focus on educational inequality and opportunity over time. She has published two books, School, Society, & State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890-1940 (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Structuring Inequality: How Schooling, Housing, and Tax Policies Shaped Metropolitan Development and Education (University of Chicago Press, 2024). She has published over a dozen journal articles, essays, and book reviews in places like History of Education Quarterly, Journal of Urban History, and Journal of American History. Her work has been supported by competitive national fellowships from the Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education, American Council of Learned Societies, Howard Foundation, and American Academy of Arts and Science among others. She is currently working on two book projects: a collaboration with a philosopher on what makes a “good school” and a sole-authored monograph on the history of for-profit business activity in education since the mid-nineteenth century.  

Diane Silva Pimentel, Distinguished Senior Lecturer, focuses her work on researching and creating experiences in science that foster the participation and persistence of underrepresented students in STEM.  She accomplishes this by serving as a faculty member in teacher preparation, creating professional development opportunities for science teachers that support the implementation of reform-based and culturally responsive teaching approaches, and with her scholarly contributions to the field.  Silva Pimentel has published research in book chapters and peer-reviewed journals, including Science Education, the Science Teacher, the International Journal of Science Teaching (IJSE), and the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. She also serves as an editorial board member of IJSE. She is currently working on a research study seeking to understand secondary science teachers’ conceptions and approaches to culturally responsive teaching practices. She was also a collaborator on grant-funded projects to teach high school students about autonomous aerial robots and develop curricula on bat-insect ecology. 

Silva Pimentel has worked with the Rhode Island Department of Education on various committees to provide recommendations for state-level learning standards and high-quality curriculum.  She is also a member of the Collective Impact Group, initiated by the Rhode Island Foundation. This group’s mission is to find ways to diversify the teacher pipeline through recruitment and retention efforts. Aligned with this work, she has organized two annual Urban Teach Conferences which bring together local secondary students from schools in the Providence area to encourage more students of color and from marginalized communities to enter the teaching profession.