This story features Dr. Mendenhall, Dr. Russell, and Dr. Pizmony-Levy who are celebrating their 10-year anniversary at Teachers College (TC), Columbia University. To commemorate their achievements, we share their reflections and messages with students and colleagues.

Dr. Mary Mendenhall
Associate Professor

Let’s learn more about Dr. Mendehall’s work!

Dr. Mendenhall is an Associate Professor in the International and Comparative Education Program at TC, Columbia University. Her research is situated at the intersection of the fields of education in emergencies, refugee and forced migration studies, and teacher development. Her studies examine refugee education policies and practices across camp, urban, and resettlement contexts; and teacher support and professional development in crisis settings, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Dr. Mendenhall recently concluded a study on teachers working in refugee and displacement contexts in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). She is currently co-leading the Ubumwe: Exploring Arts for Education and Psychosocial Support with Refugee Children and Youth project, which aims to bolster psychosocial and educational outcomes among refugee children and youth through the integration of arts in education and community spaces in Uganda. Dr. Mendenhall is an active member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies’ Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative (TiCC), a collaborative effort to provide continuous, quality professional development to teachers working in displacement contexts. She is also the new Director of the George Clement Bond Center for African Education at TC, and a faculty affiliate to the CPC Learning Network (housed at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health). Dr. Mendenhall has an Ed.D. in international educational development from TC, an M.A. in higher education administration from New York University, and a B.A. in psychology from Ohio University.

About the photo: Dr. Mendenhall, Danni Falk, Daniel Shephard, and Emily Varni debriefing after fieldwork in northern Uganda

What have been some of her professional highlights in the last 10 years? 

Over the past 10 years, Dr. Mendenhall has collaborated closely with both master’s and doctoral students to support qualitative, interdisciplinary, and participatory research on teacher professional development, school leadership, and teacher and student well-being in Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. Her publications take a critical approach to refugee studies by examining teacher policies and practices among predominantly refugee teachers in East Africa. These interests stem from over two decades of educational research, teaching, and leadership in conflict-affected contexts. Through these efforts, she has collaborated with multiple international organizations, including Oxfam, UNHCR, and UNICEF, and received funding for her research from Columbia World Projects, the European Union, IDEO, the LEGO Foundation, and the U.S. State Department, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. She has also been an active member of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) through multiple roles over the years on the Standards & Practice Working Group and the Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative.

About the photo: Dr. Mendenhall and the international team of students, practitioners, scholars, and artists working on the Ubumwe project in the Kyangwali settlement in western Uganda

Relevant multimedia material & publications

To learn more about Dr. Mendenhall’s work and the international research conducted at TC, take a look at this video. Check out this interview (in narrative) as well on the Global Development Commons website. 

Dr. Garnett Russell 
Associate Professor
Director, ICEd Program

Learn about Dr. Russell’s trajectory!

Dr. Russell’s research focuses on areas linked to education and conflict, peacebuilding, transitional justice, human rights, citizenship, and gender. She has conducted research in Rwanda, South Africa, Colombia, and Ecuador.

Her current research project is focused on the role of education in promoting peace-building and transitional justice in Colombia. She has also conducted research on resettled refugees and newcomer youth in the U.S., human rights education in New York high schools, and the right to education for urban refugees in Ecuador, Lebanon, Kenya, and other countries in the global south. In addition, she is the co-founder and former co-chair of the CIES SIG for Education, Conflict, and Emergencies and is also a board member of the International Journal for Human Rights Education and a former board member of the Journal on Education in Emergencies.

Dr. Russell’s recent publications have appeared in the Comparative Education Review, the American Educational Research Journal, the American Journal of Education, and the Journal on Education in Emergencies. In addition, her book on education and peacebuilding in post-genocide Rwanda, Becoming Rwandan, is published with Rutgers University Press. 

She has received funding from the Spencer Foundation, Dubai Cares/E-3, the National Science Foundation (NSF), NSEP Boren, and the U.S. State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM). Previously, she worked as a policy analyst for UNESCO, as well as a consultant for other non-profit organizations including Save the Children and SRI International. Professor Russell has a Ph.D. from Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in International Development from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.

You can check out her personal website here and follow her on Twitter (@sgarnettrussell). 

Let’s learn more about Dr. Russell’s work!

Over the past decade at TC, I have had the opportunity to work with amazing students and colleagues. I have conducted numerous projects on issues related to education in conflict and post-conflict contexts around human rights, forced migration, peacebuilding, and transitional justice. I conducted a project funded by the Spencer Foundation on “Understanding Civic Identity, Rights, and Belonging among Resettled Refugees and Recent Immigrant Students in the U.S.” In this project, a research team and I conducted mixed methods research in four schools in Arizona and New York with newcomer immigrant and resettled refugee students (see article below).

Most recently, I have been involved in a multi-year research project, “Education for Transitional Justice, Reconciliation, and Peacebuilding," investigating the extent to which the education system is playing a role in promoting peacebuilding and transitional justice in Colombia, as well as seeking to understand how students, teachers, and school staff understand ideas about transitional justice and peace. For this project, I collected data in 12 schools in 3 regions of Colombia with a team of TC doctoral and MA students and local research assistants during the 2022 school year (see article). The research was supported by grants from E3-INEE-Dubai Cares, the Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS) at Columbia University, and TC, Columbia University. In addition, I worked with a team of amazing research assistants to code and analyze the interview and survey data and to produce school reports for each school; we are currently working on a policy report for the schools and government agencies, as well as several academic articles. To close the project, we conducted a workshop with teachers and principals from the participating schools in Medellín in July 2023. In this workshop, we shared initial findings from the research project and discussed strategies to teach about armed conflict, peacebuilding, and transitional justice across different contexts and schools. 

About the photo: Dr. Russell and her research team as well as participants in Medellin, Colombia, during the workshop for Teachers and School Principals on transitional justice celebrated in July 2023

Relevant multimedia material & publications

To learn more about Dr. Russell’s work and the international research conducted at TC, take a look at this video. 

Featured publications: 

Dr. Oren Pizmony-Levy
Associate Professor

Let’s learn more about Dr. Pizmony-Levy’s work!

Oren Pizmony-Levy is an Associate Professor of International and Comparative Education at TC, Columbia University. He received a B.A. in political science and educational policy from Tel-Aviv University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology and educational leadership and policy studies from Indiana University – Bloomington. His research examines the emergence, spread, and impact of global education movements. Professor Pizmony-Levy’s main line of research is concerned with environmental sustainability education policy and politics, as reflected in the work of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and cities. Other lines of research focus on international large-scale assessments of student achievement (e.g., TIMSS and PISA), and the impact of these assessments on the policy process through public discourse and public opinion.  

Professor Pizmony-Levy is the founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Futures. At the Center, he leads two international research projects on teachers’ engagement with environmental sustainability education (part of the OECD TALIS) and on organizations active in climate change communication and education (part of the MECCE Project). He is an active member of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and served as the Chairperson of three Special Interest Groups: SOGIE SIG (2018/2020); Large-Scale Cross-National Studies in Education SIG (2013/2016); and the Environmental and Sustainability Education SIG (2012/2014).

Among his recent publications are “Improving ESE policy through research-practice partnerships: Reflections and analysis from New York City” (with Meredith McDermott and Thad Copeland), and “Networked Education Systems and the Flow of PISA-Induced References” (with Erika Kessler). Professor Pizmony-Levy is the recipient of multiple awards from professional associations, including CIES and the American Sociological Association. He has received research grants from the Arcus Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the U.S. State Department.

You can follow Dr. Pizmony-Levy on Twitter (@OrenPizmonyLevy). 

Center for Sustainable Futures

Dr. Pizmony-Levy the founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Futures (CSF) at TC envisions a regenerative world in which we achieve a balance between planet, people, and prosperity. CSF’s mission is to promote learning, awareness, attitudes, and skills to work individually and collectively toward the long-term sustainability of complex living systems. CSF supports and conducts original research, engages in research-practice partnerships, mentors and trains graduate students, and uses data to inform evidence-based policy, practice, and communication. 

You can learn more about CSG here.

About the photo: Dr. Pizmony-Levy alongside CSF colleagues as researchers from CSF shared their work at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) in Washington D.C.

Relevant multimedia material & publications

To learn more about Dr. Pizmony-Levy’s work and the international research conducted at TC, take a look at this video. 

Congratulations! Thank you for your incredible contributions. Shall the journey at TC and Columbia University continue!

— International and Comparative Education

Programs: Comparative and International Education

Published Wednesday, Aug 16, 2023