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60+ Amazing Research Topics for Educational Leadership

A dissertation or thesis is a document presented for one to be awarded a degree or professional qualification. It involves research on a given topic.

Educational leadership, on the other hand, involves identifying and nurturing talents in a school set up to meet the objectives of education.

Now let’s merge the two and see the meaning.

A dissertation topic in educational leadership is, therefore, a thesis on how pupils, teachers, and parents will work towards achieving a common goal.

Leadership dissertation topics are common nowadays attributed to the growing number of institutions, and schools were also incorporated. Education dissertation topics are hence being researched daily due to the emerging challenges in running schools.

Dissertation topics in higher education leadership are vast because of the various tertiary institutions available; vocational training institutions, colleges, and universities. Enough of the explanations, and now let’s delve into the course meal. So sit tight and belt up, this is going to be one fantastic flight you’ve ever had.

60 Research Paper Topics in Educational Leadership

• The Effects of Religion on Educational Leadership
• Analyzing Long Term and Short Term Educational Leadership Goals
• How to pass teacher’s excellence to students easily
• The role of Leadership Summits on Educational Leadership
• The Impact of leadership Training Institutions on Educational Leadership
• How To Improve Education Leadership in the Society Today
• How effective is the Youth than the Elderly in Educational Leadership?
• Evaluating Different structures of Organizational Leadership
• How Education Leadership Varies with Different Continental Settings
• The Effects of Teacher-Parent-Student Ratio in Educational Leadership
• How Public and Private Institutions Vary in Education Leadership
• Policies in Educational Leadership and Their Impact
• Analyzing Higher Education Leadership Characteristics
• Leadership in Higher Education Frames Analysis
• The Impact of Higher Education Programs Leadership Development
• The Higher education Leadership Indigenous Perspective
• Distance Education Programs and Transformational Leadership Characteristics in Higher Education
• How to Plan For an American Higher Education Leadership Crisis
• Preparing of Educational Leadership Personnel
• Evaluating Better Schools With a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership
• How is Educational Leadership in the 21st Century
• Understanding What a Masters in Educational Leadership Entails
• How Educational Leadership is Financed
• Evaluating Differences in Educational Leadership Between Profit and Non-Profit Organizations
• The Need for Effective Leadership in Education
• Analyzing Globalization in Educational Leadership
• Understanding the Different Education Leadership Styles
• When To Start Teaching Education Leadership and The Impact
• Impact of Online Courses on Educational Leadership Graduates
• How Innovative Strategies Impact Educational Leadership
• Evaluating Trends in Educational Leadership
• How Educational Leadership Contributes to Discrimination
• Analyzing Technical Terms in Educational Leadership
• What is the Impact of Subordinate Staff on Educational Leadership
• How Can we Merge Student Leadership with the Administration
• The Need to Simplify Educational Leadership
• Innovative Solutions to Educational Leadership Challenges
• Ensuring Sustainable Student-Parent-Teacher Relationship
• Demystifying Myths About Educational Leadership
• How To Initiate a Re-Birth in Educational Leadership

Also, here are additional dissertation topics for custom dissertation writing on educational leadership:

1. Understanding The Role of Women in Educational Leadership

Ladies, first am being a gentleman here. It has been one of the most researched educational leadership topics.

2. How Cultural Organizations Influence School Institutions

A set way of life defines every Society in any part of the world. These cultural aspects also imply educational leadership.

3. The Influence of Educational Leadership on Transformation

This form of organizational leadership dissertation aims to establish the impact of educational leadership in Society. For instance, how has the Society grown or depreciated as a result of the educational leadership?

4. What Role Does Educational Leadership Serve in Society?

The values and morals set by an education institution determine how the Society will be in the future. A valuable educational leadership system will thus pass on responsible, and reliable people to Society.

5. The Role of Education Leadership on the Success of the Society

Success is critical in any undertaking. If not, why engage with it in the first place? This dissertation topic, therefore, seeks to unveil how education leadership can contribute to the success of the Society.

6. The Impact of Educational Leadership in Research and Literature

Educational leadership determines decisions such as the number of resources invested in research. Thus, it will major on how various forms of educational leadership either contribute to or against study and literature.

7. How Social Media Affects Educational Leadership

The digital era has immensely contributed to the organization of various forms of leadership. Social media can either be positively or negatively impacting educational leadership. Therefore, such a dissertation topic will bring this out.

8. How Poor Leadership and Poor Results in Schools Relate

Decisions made by the parents, teacher, or the students themselves will have an impact on their results.

9. The Role of Technology in Educational Leadership

Has it improved or depreciated the value of educational leadership?

10. The Impact of the Community on Educational Leadership

It focuses on how to incorporate the community into the educational leadership and the subsequent results.

11. How Racism Impacts Educational Leadership

This leadership dissertation topic focuses on institutions with mixed races. Does this affect the running of institutions?

12. The Impact of Interdisciplinary Teams in Running of Schools

Are they effective? And if so, to what extent?

13. The Comparison between Top and Lower Performing Schools

How are the two institutions managed? Are the educational leadership systems the same?

14. How to Intertwine Certain Teaching Methods with an Efficient Organization

Can specific strategic teaching methods be incorporated into educational leadership?

15. How Leadership Wrangles Affect Students

Teachers and parents fighting for different positions in the administration can affect student performance.

16. Analyzing Characteristics of Various Teachers Handling a Certain Subject

The traits of various instructors can either have a positive or negative impact on their mode of delivery.

17. How can Students be incorporated into the Educational Leadership

Ways in which students can adequately represent in the school leadership.

18. Government Regulations on Educational Leadership

Do Government regulations promote or inhibit educational leadership?

19. How Can Special Groups Be Represented Effectively

Persons with disabilities also have an equal right in administration.

20. Evaluating the Impact of the Politics of a Country to Educational Leadership

Do politicians have a say in the running of school institutions?

Use Our Topics And Get A+ Grade

These dissertation topics will properly groom you in writing your next thesis. Ask our professional team of writers to get help in writing more leadership dissertation topics.

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School leadership and school organization: investigating their effects on school improvement in reading and math

Führung an Schulen und Schulorganisation: Eine Untersuchung ihrer Effekte auf die Schulentwicklung in den Domänen Lesen und Mathematik

• Schwerpunkt
• Published: 28 September 2020
• Volume 23 , pages 925–954, ( 2020 )

Cite this article

• Ronald H. Heck 1 &
• Tingting Reid 1  

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In this study, we explore patterns of improvement among a large set of elementary schools over four years. We use as a starting point the premise that school improvement, by definition, entails a change in the state of the organization over some period of time. We first examine whether changes in school leadership and school organizational processes impact growth in student reading and math outcomes. We next identify four latent classes of schools with contrasting growth trajectories and determine whether or not these empirically-derived latent classes are associated with differences in schools’ contextual conditions and specific malleable school leadership and school organization constructs. Our results provide some initial steps that link these different achievement classifications to varied patterns of school leadership and school organization practices.

Zusammenfassung

In dieser Studie untersuchen wir Schulentwicklungsmuster anhand einer großen Anzahl von Grundschulen über einen Zeitraum von vier Jahren. Dabei legen wir die Annahme zugrunde, dass die Entwicklung einer Schule im Laufe der Zeit eine Veränderung der Schulorganisation mit sich bringt. Wir untersuchen zunächst, ob Veränderungen in der Führung von Schulen und in den schulischen Organisationsprozessen das Wachstum in der Lese- und Mathematikleistungen von Schülerinnen und Schüler beeinflussen. Als nächstes identifizieren wir vier latente Klassen von Schulen mit unterschiedlichen Wachstumsverläufen und untersuchen, ob diese empirisch abgeleiteten latenten Klassen mit den Kontextbedingungen der Schulen und beeinflussbaren Schulleitungs- und Schulorganisationsmerkmalen zusammen hängen oder nicht. Unsere Befunde liefern erste Aussagen dazu, wie diese unterschiedlichen Lernentwicklungsmuster wiederum mit Mustern der Schulleitungs- und Schulorganisationspraxis zusammen hängen.

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School Leadership and the Influence on a School Development Process

Effect of school leadership on student academic achievement: school level path variables

The Effect of Educational Leadership on Students’ Achievement

We made this choice to provide a little more time between teachers’ initial responses regarding school processes and our final assessment of student progress (i.e., covering approximately four years) based on previous a longitudinal study of monitoring school improvement in responding to mandatory restructuring (Heck and Chang 2017 ).

We investigated possible nonlinear growth between schools by freeing the last factor loading (0.1,*). We found the final loading was 1.97 for reading and 1.86 for math. This suggested the final growth factor loadings could be fixed to 2.0. We also adopted this linear coding for our latent growth mixture model, as it facilitated final model convergence due to the complexity of the proposed parallel growth model and the differences in latent class sizes.

At the first step, the latent classes are defined independent from any covariates. In the second step, the most likely class variable is created (i.e., a nominal variable consisting of the identified classes), using the latent class posterior distribution obtained during the latent class formulation step. In the third step, the most likely class variable is regressed on the covariates, which are included as auxiliary variables, so that they will not affect the measurement of the latent class variable, C , while considering the misclassification encountered in the second step. This is important, as including the covariates in the initial steps could lead to distorted results in determining the number and size of the latent classes and thus diminish their stability.

Standardized factor loadings (which defined are invariant across groups in the scalar invariance solution) are slightly different at each occasion due to differences in the standard deviations. Stronger standardized factor loadings indicate better, more discriminating item. The standardized loadings ranged from 0.8 to well above 0.9 for all subscales defining the leadership and school organization factors. Twelve of the 18 estimates over the three occasions were 0.90 to 0.96, and the other 6 were (0.80 to 0.87). This provides evidence the observed subscales were strong measures of the underlying factors.

The lower bound of model fit for the Standardized Root Mean Square is often considered as SRMR = 0.05 (Hu and Bentler 1999 ). By this guideline, only the estimate of the between-school SRMR was larger than suggested guidelines.

We note Bryk et al. ( 2010 ) observed similar significant effects (0.08–0.11) of instructional leadership, program coherence, collective responsibility, and orientation toward innovation on school academic improvement.

We noted some multicollinearity in preliminary investigations of our set of predictors used to predict latent class membership (i.e. several tolerance coefficients below 0.4). We therefore constructed an initial status latent factor (i.e. a weighted factor of leadership and school organization) and a change latent factor (i.e. a weighted factor of change in leadership and school organization) for this part of our analysis. We found these new constructs were more satisfactory indicators of class membership in our predictive models (given that they took in all the information regarding the initial status and change estimates but were only weakly correlated), with tolerance coefficients above 0.9.

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Heck, R.H., Reid, T. School leadership and school organization: investigating their effects on school improvement in reading and math. Z Erziehungswiss 23 , 925–954 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-020-00969-3

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Received : 20 November 2019

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Accepted : 03 September 2020

Published : 28 September 2020

Issue Date : October 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-020-00969-3

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UKnowledge > College of Education > Educational Leadership Studies > Theses & Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP IN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS ACROSS THE ASIA PACIFIC: A SEQUENTIAL EXPLANATORY STUDY , Robert A. Appino

Answering the Call of Late Registration , Brooke Justice

THE INFLUENCE OF INDEPENDENT SECONDARY SCHOOL HEADS ON SHAPING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE , Ian D. MacPhail

LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES AND MULTI-FRAME THINKING OF RURAL SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS’ DURING PERIODS OF CRISIS , Steven J. Moses

MC Means Mentor the Child: Examining School-Based Hip-Hop Clubs for Youth Empowerment, Leadership Development, and Capacity for Change , Daniel Wolford

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

An Exploration of Effective District Practices For Enculturating and Retaining Kentucky's Newest Teachers in the Profession , Cari Lea Boyd

Principals as Instructional Leaders: Building Knowledge of Applied Learning to Confidently Lead Implementation , Janell Lynn McClure

ADDRESSING A COHORT DISCREPANCY AMONG NINTH-GRADE STUDENTS AT A RURAL/SUBURBAN HIGH SCHOOL , Bryley Keaton Murphy

UNDERSTANDING FIRST-YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS SAFETY, SAVVINESS, AND SOCIAL ETIQUETTE ONLINE , Collis Ray Robinson

Investigating the Relationship Between Empowerment and Secondary Science Teachers’ Technology Integration Knowledge , Jane Elizabeth Walsh

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Impacting Website Visitor Engagement Through Information Provision , Will Buntin

Using Communities of Practice to Support At-Home Gospel Learning from a Release Time Seminary Classroom , Nicholas A. Davis

IMPROVING SELF-EFFICACY OF TEAMS SUPPORTING ADMINISTRATORS AND TEACHERS THROUGH COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE , Boyd Gudgel

The Power of Connections: An Online Doctoral Program's Use of Strategic Onboarding to Enhance the Doctoral Experience , Jeri Heileman

CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILL INTEGRATION WITHIN THE EQUINE SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY , Savannah Faye Robin

Meeting Transfer Students Where They Are: A New Organizational Approach to Transfer Student Communication, Support, and Recruitment , Daniel Wright

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Fostering A Sense of Community Among Teachers Via A Community of Practice: A Mixed-Methods Action Research Study , Apryl Clark Moore

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A Constructive Approach to Managing Faculty Conflict: An Action Research Study , Natasha L. Davis

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL HEADS’ SELF-EFFICACY AND GOVERNANCE: AN INTERVENTION , Joshua Ashley Garrett

BUILDING COMMUNICATION, COLLABORATION, AND SELF-EFFICACY AMONG ELEMENTARY SCHOOL COUNSELORS THROUGH COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE , Garrett Rimey

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

NEW TEACHER INDUCTION: IMPROVING TEACHER SELF-EFFICACY , William Jesse Bacon

A Personalized Approach to Professional Development Through a Community of Practice , Kelly I. Cua

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The Harm of School Closures Can Last a Lifetime, New Research Shows

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Students who attend a school that closes during their K-12 career have lower test scores along with worse attendance and behavior in the short term. In the long term, they’re less likely than their peers to complete college and have a job, and their earnings tend to be lower.

Each year, hundreds of schools across the country close because of low enrollment, budget shortfalls, and poor performance. Decades of research have shown that those closures have a short-term, negative impact on students’ academic achievement, with researchers documenting drops in test scores, attendance, and high school graduation rates that usually recover after three years.

But a new working paper shows that the impact of school closures often extends well past graduation, said Jeonghyeok Kim, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Houston and the researcher behind the study.

“Those students in secondary education, middle and high school students, they show a persistent drop in their test scores,” Kim said. “From those effects, I also found long-term negative effects on their higher education attainment and even their wages.”

Districts across the country are weighing school closures as they face tighter budgets with the coming end of COVID-era relief funds and declining enrollments. Some schools through the years have also closed due to poor performance. Research has shown closures disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families, which recently prompted two civil rights groups to request guidance from the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights outlining when closures violate federal civil rights law.

Kim centered his research around a dataset of 470 Texas schools that closed from 1998 to 2015.

By age 26, the students who experienced school closures were 4.8 percent less likely to have attended college, 4.7 percent less likely to have completed college, and 1.3 percent less likely to be employed than their peers in schools with similar demographics and in similarly sized cities who did not experience a school closure. Annual earnings for those students from ages 25 to 27 were also 3.4 percent lower than their peers’.

In his research, Kim also documented immediate disruptions to learning among students whose schools closed.

Kim found a statistically significant drop in math and reading scores among students who went through a school closure. They were also absent on 1.8 percent more school days in the three years following the closure than the three years before. In addition, Kim found an increase in disciplinary action, including expulsions, out-of-school suspensions, and in-school suspensions, for bad behavior following school closures. The number of days students were disciplined for bad behavior in the three years following a school closure increased by 15 percent compared to the three years before school closures.

The declines in educational and post-graduation success were more pronounced among Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students, and students who were in middle or high school when the school closed rather than in elementary school, Kim said.

“The more vulnerable students are more negatively affected, so maybe we can put more attention to those students in the process of school closure,” Kim said. “Then maybe we can alleviate the negative effect a bit.”

Schools close for a variety of reasons

Kim found that schools close primarily because of drops in enrollment, but poor performance is a factor as well.

Kim was able to determine the specific reason for closure in 267 of the 470 closure cases included in the study. Of those 267, 31 percent closed because of an enrollment change; 22 percent closed because of district changes, such as rezoning to accommodate shifting populations and the construction of new schools; 16 percent closed because of financial constraints; 13 percent closed because of old buildings; and 9 percent closed because of school reform, in which schools might not have been physically closed but converted into another type of school such as a charter or magnet school.

Only 3 percent of the schools in the study closed because of low performance. Another 3 percent closed because of a district merger, and 3 percent were marked as closed because of a coding change in the National Center for Education Statistics, the source of the data set.

A 2022 study from the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice found that schools, including public and charter schools, are less likely to close if they increase enrollment, post high scores or rankings, or improve students’ academic growth. Federal policies that prioritize high standardized test scores and include the potential for state intervention and closure for poor performance, such as the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act and the Obama-era School Improvement Grant program, have encouraged districts to improve test scores, rankings, and enrollment to avoid closure.

But other factors have historically contributed to school closures as well. For example, people living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods may have less political power to advocate for keeping a school open, or budget decisions may force otherwise high-performing schools to close because of dilapidated buildings, researchers told Education Week.

Studies have shown that schools with high Black and Hispanic populations are disproportionately likely to close. In a study of federal enrollment data from 2000 to 2018, researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Education found that majority-Black schools were three times more likely to close than schools with smaller enrollments of Black students.

The effect of school closures is felt unevenly

Kim’s study confirmed that students of color are more likely to experience school closures and that the closures have a greater effect on their educational attainment.

Hispanic students accounted for 47 percent of students experiencing school closures in Kim’s study, while they made up 43 percent of the total Texas student population. Students who qualify for free-and-reduced price lunch made up 63 percent of students experiencing closures while they only accounted for 49 percent of Texas students.

Attendance among Hispanic students also took a bigger hit than it did among other student populations: Hispanic students were absent 6.4 percent more days following a school closure, compared with the 1.8 percent increase for all students. Black students experienced a 33 percent jump in the number of days on which they received disciplinary action following a closure, compared with the 15 percent increase among all students.

Economically disadvantaged students were absent 7.3 percent more often following a closure. They also had the highest increase of any group for the number of days of disciplinary action—38 percent.

The results ultimately show that school closures disproportionately impact students of color and students from low-income families.

“There is a long-term negative effect,” Kim said. “It is worsening inequality in some sense.”

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St. bonaventure university, st. bonaventure’s ed.d. program accepted into cped network.

St. Bonaventure, which begins offering its new Ed.D. program this fall, joins more than 135 CPED members in the important work of redesigning professional practice preparation in education for the improvement of PK-20 education and the organizations that support it.

“Achieving CPED membership at such an early point in our program’s history is a huge vote of confidence from the larger Educational Leadership community,” said Dr. Jason Margolis, SBU’s program director for Educational Leadership. “It also will ensure that as we continue to grow, we will do so guided by the latest best practices and ideas.”

CPED institution members are a network that stimulates each institution’s work and provides space for sharing, learning and providing feedback in a national dialogue across faculty, students and administrators in Doctor of Education programs.

St. Bonaventure was one of 10 institutions accepted this week into CPED.

“We’re very excited to welcome these institution members to CPED’s growing consortium and to see the contributions they will make in transforming the Ed.D. to meet the educational needs of the 21st century,” said Jill A. Perry, Ph.D., CPED executive director.

New members are chosen through a rigorous application process and evaluated by a membership committee composed of leaders of current CPED members. Based on the application and support materials of each of these new institution members, CPED anticipates that adding these institutions to the network will add a value that will push CPED’s collective work even farther, Perry said.

SBU’s fully online program is designed to be completed in eight semesters, which includes summers.

Applicants for SBU’s program must have a master’s degree; minimum five years of professional experience; a 3.0 graduate school GPA; two letters of recommendation; and a 500-750 word statement of purpose.

Prospective students interested in learning more about the program should contact Margolis at [email protected] .

______________

About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).

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UTA provost chosen for Millennium Leadership Initiative

Tuesday, Jun 18, 2024 • Neph Rivera : contact

Tamara L. Brown, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at The University of Texas at Arlington, is among 30 distinguished senior-level higher education professionals selected for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ (AASCU) 2024-25 Millennium Leadership Initiative (MLI).

Launched in 1999 under the advisement of AASCU’s African American presidents, MLI is a premier leadership development program designed to diversify and enrich the American college presidency. The initiative is rooted in preparing higher education leaders from traditionally underrepresented communities with the skills, philosophical overviews and networks necessary to advance to the highest ranks of postsecondary education.

Dr. Brown oversees all of UTA’s academic and student affairs, along with key operational units such as the Division of Student Success, Extension and Extended Campus and Enrollment Management. She also helps lead UTA’s bold faculty hiring initiative, Recruiting Innovative Scholars for Excellence (RISE), a $60 million effort to add 100 new tenure-system faculty in just three years.

“I am always in search of ideas and programs that will bolster the success of UT Arlington as a Tier One research university committed to student success,” Brown said. “This leadership initiative is an opportunity to learn alongside some of our nation’s rising higher education leaders and apply those lessons at UTA.”

Through its rich network of faculty, alumni and other key campus leaders, MLI connects aspiring presidents and chancellors to the expertise, experiences, and resources required to thrive. Participants receive a realistic look at what a president needs to navigate the current and future higher education landscape.

“Provost Brown has an incredible ability to lead people and an empathetic approach to understanding what people are going through,” said UTA President Jennifer Cowley, who nominated her for the MLI. “She is the right person to represent UTA in this cohort of national higher education leaders.”

This year’s MLI participants carry the added distinction of being the initiative’s 25th cohort. This 25-year legacy is significant, as it has unlocked opportunities for aspiring presidents and chancellors on campuses ranging from California to Connecticut.

Since its inception, nearly 750 individuals have completed the program, with 163 going on to become university presidents or chancellors and 43 serving multiple presidencies or chancellorships. AASCU President and CEO Charles L. Welch is no stranger to MLI, having served as a mentor in 2019 and continued champion for the program.

“MLI creates a vast and talented pool of qualified candidates to fill presidencies, chancellorships, and senior-level vacancies in higher education,” said Welch. “As we celebrate this incoming class that comprises our 25th cohort, we’re thankful for the bold vision of MLI’s founders who sought to build a strong pipeline of higher ed leaders who reflect the rich diversity of our nation and, more importantly, our students.”

The opening seminar for the 2024-25 cohort took place June 12-15 in Washington, D.C. This year’s cohort can be viewed here .

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) is a Washington, D.C.-based higher education association of 350 public colleges, universities, and systems whose members share a learning- and teaching-centered culture, a historic commitment to underserved student populations, and a dedication to research and creativity that advances their regions’ economic progress and cultural development. These are institutions Delivering America’s Promise.

Vanderbilt’s Donna Ingles named to prestigious Harvard leadership program to advance Nashville’s biomedical sector

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Jun 17, 2024, 11:02 PM

Donna Ingles, director of operations for the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization, has been named to the 2024 Young American Leaders Program at Harvard Business School by the Global Action Platform.

Ingles is among 10 Middle Tennessee leaders chosen for an intensive workshop this summer, which aims to create a biomedical economic development strategy for the region using cluster models devised by Harvard economist Michael Porter. The leaders represent corporate, academic, government and nonprofit organizations.

“I’m honored by the opportunity to be part of this program and look forward to continuing to expand Vanderbilt’s cross-sector collaborative engagement and leadership,” Ingles said. “One of the recent cohorts leveraged this experience to secure a $1 million workforce development grant. We’ll be learning from and building upon their success.”

The program’s objective is to cultivate a dynamic network of Nashville leaders who can collaborate across traditional boundaries to promote prosperity and inclusive growth for all residents.

Porter’s cluster model concept emphasizes that geographically concentrated businesses and institutions in a shared industry can significantly boost regional economic development by enhancing productivity, innovation and business creation.

Based on research by the Global Action Platform, improvements in workforce skills, education and infrastructure are lagging, potentially leading to economic disparities in the U.S., especially among working-class and middle-class Americans.

Nashville’s robust biomedical community spans various fields, including medical research, health care technology, pharmaceuticals and patient care. Developing a biomedical cluster strategy is crucial for addressing U.S. competitiveness on the global stage.

“There is incredible potential for Nashville to become a powerhouse of innovation in the biomedical arena and to make true progress toward a more inclusive economy that benefits our entire region,” Ingles said. “Investing time and resources to unite leaders from multiple sectors to develop and refine mutually beneficial strategies is key to achieving this goal.”

The Young American Leaders Program brings together leaders from 14 U.S. cities to foster community prosperity through cross-sector collaboration. Participating cities include Boston, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Seattle.

Previous Vanderbilt faculty and staff who have participated in the program include:

• Mario Avila, assistant professor of the practice, Owen Graduate School of Management (2016)
• Samar Ali, research professor of political science, College of Arts and Science (2017)
• Caroline Randall Williams, writer in residence of medicine, health and society, College of Arts and Science (2017)
• Alex Jahangir, professor of orthopaedic surgery, School of Medicine (2018)
• Nathan Green, vice chancellor for government and community relations (2019)
• Bonnie Dow, professor of communication studies, dean of academic affairs and vice dean, College of Arts and Science (2021)
• Charleson Bell, research assistant professor of biomedical engineering, School of Engineering, and director of entrepreneurship and biomedical innovation at the Wond’ry (2022)
• George Wilson, assistant director of new venture programs at the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (2022)
• Chris Rowe, executive director for industry collaborations, Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation (2023)

Ingles joins this distinguished group, poised to contribute significantly to Nashville’s biomedical sector and broader economic development.

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Vanderbilt leads $12M effort to accelerate real-world impact of biomedical innovations through education, mentorship and funding for aspiring entrepreneurs

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School of Biology and Ecology

Swikar karki, sbe/sfr ph.d. student, awarded national scholarship by the compost research & education foundation (cref)..

Scholarships Awarded to University Students for Compost Research Projects:

July 10, 2024…Raleigh, NC- The Compost Research & Education Foundation’s (CREF) Board of Trustees has announced the winners of this year’s University Compost Research Scholarships. Two students were awarded national scholarships. The Foundation received numerous excellent applications; however, these two applications were superior to the rest.

The CREF annual university scholarship is available to students to assist with their current research projects. The purpose of the CREF scholarship is to encourage more compost-related research projects, a core mission of the Foundation. The students receive not only a financial award but are also invited to present their finished work at the US Composting Council’s Annual Conference during a CREF research session.

“Each year, we receive scholarship applications from students from across the country who are dedicated to pursuing research projects related to compost. It’s exciting to learn about these projects and it’s difficult to select just two winners. The CREF Board of Trustees are pleased that we can support our two scholarship winners and look forward to their progress this year,” said Lorrie Rossiter, CREF Board Chair.

Swikar Karki is a PhD student in Plant Science at the University of Maine, working with the Plant Physiology Lab and the Biomass Energy Lab. The topic of his research project is Investigating the Efficacy of Compost and Biochar for Sustainable Wild Blueberry Cultivation.

His research will focus on the impact of compost and biochar applications in wild blueberries in Maine. The study aims to understand how the combination of compost and biochar can improve soil properties, plant health, and crop productivity under drought conditions. Two representative wild blueberry farms are part of the study. Using a randomized complete block design, the study will include treatments such as biochar, biochar-compost mixtures, and compost. Soil samples will be analyzed for pH, nutrient content, organic matter, and soil fungal diversity. Additionally, crop physiological performance including water use, photosynthesis, and yield will be assessed. The study hypothesizes that the combination of compost and biochar enhances soil health, nutrient availability, and fungal activity, supporting plant health and increasing yield stability. This research aims to alleviate the impact of drought on wild blueberry production by addressing soil health and enhancing moisture retention.

The other winner is Kefang Nie, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Population Health and Reproduction at the University of California, Davis.

Her research project will investigate the microbial contamination and dynamics in commercial composting facilities and under documented home and urban composting units across California. In her project, fecal coliform concentration and presence of Salmonella spp. in finished compost will serve as direct indicators of the operation in these composting facilities.

Furthermore, the project will look to see if the presence of other foodborne pathogens in composting facilities expands understanding of microbial dynamics within these composting facilities. This knowledge will not only inform stakeholders of compost distribution regarding of regions, feedstocks, processing approaches, and other various factors, but also provide valuable insights into the potential risks associated with diverse composting practices.

Learn more about this scholarship program and past scholarship winners  HERE