Ann Ishimaru

Professor Ishimaru’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of leadership, school-community relationships and educational equity in early care through high school. Her work aims to expand educational leadership to create more equitable educational environments, with particular attention on students, families and communities who have been historically marginalized in education. In addition, she focuses on formal leaders in educational systems, data-informed inquiry and school transformation.

Professor Ishimaru is co-principal investigator for the Family Leadership Design Collaborative, a national effort to re-center nondominant families in racial equity efforts. She is also a co-principal investigator on the Equitable Parent-School Collaboration Research Project, which seeks to foster engagement from parents and communities toward improving student learning across South Seattle and South King County, and principal investigator on a research-practice partnership fostering system capacity of racial equity in Seattle Public Schools. She has received the Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research Award from the American Educational Research Association in 2017, the Jack A. Culbertson (Early Career) Award from the University Council of Educational Administration in 2016 and the Social Justice Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association in 2013.

Professor Ishimaru is author of “Just Schools: Building Equitable Collaborations with Families and Communities” (2019) and her recent articles include “Families in the Driver’s Seat: Catalyzing Familial Transformative Agency for Equitable Collaboration” in Teachers College Record, “Community design circles: Co-designing justice and wellbeing in family-community-research partnerships” in the Journal of Family Diversity in Education and “Re-imagining turnaround: families and communities leading educational justice” in the Journal of Educational Administration.

Education

• EdD, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• EdM, Education Policy Management, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• MA, Curriculum and Teacher Education, Stanford University School of Education

Recent Honors & Awards

• 2022 UCEA William J. Davis Award for Most Outstanding Article of the Year, Educational Administration Quarterly
• 2021 AERA Outstanding Reviewer, Educational Researcher
• 2017 Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research Award, American Educational Research Association (AERA)
  
• 2016 Jack A. Culbertson Award, University Council of Educational Administration
• 2015 Early career award for significant contributions to educational administration
• 2015 Finalist, University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award