Alexus Laster, a doctoral candidate at Howard University, has been awarded the AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research for the 2025–26 academic year. This highly competitive fellowship, which includes a $25,000 stipend and travel funding, supports scholars from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as they complete their dissertation research. Laster’s work focuses on “The Black Student Parent Experience: Exploring Student Parent Servingness at an Exemplar HBCU,” shedding light on how historically Black colleges and universities support student parents in navigating higher education.

As part of the fellowship, Laster will present her research at the 2026 AERA Annual Meeting in Los Angeles during an invited poster session showcasing promising scholarship in education research. The fellowship program, established in 1991, aims to build capacity and diversify the education research field by mentoring emerging scholars. Laster joins six other fellows whose projects span topics such as racial identity at HBCUs, Indigenous partnerships in science education, and Black families’ educational decision-making.