Cindy Ann Kilgo, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, has won the Early Career Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

The award is presented in recognition of an emerging, significant and potential future scholarship.

Kilgo said they were surprised and incredibly honored to receive the award, as so many scholars they admire have received the same award over the years.

Their research areas include high-impact educational practices, the college experience for minoritized student populations and the facilitation of institutional change processes toward more inclusive and equitable campus environments. Currently Kilgo is working on several major projects, including a Spencer Foundation-funded project examining the socialization experiences of transgender college students.

“We have several years of longitudinal qualitative data from trans students across the U.S. about their experiences entering and navigating through college. I’m also working on several manuscripts that examine the use of critical quantitative methods in studying college impact. In these papers, I am specifically focusing on the ways that systemic oppression has and might be measured quantitatively and the ways that queer theory can be infused into quantitative analysis,” they explained.

Kilgo’s overall career goal is to help transform higher education into a more equitable system for minoritized student populations.

“I hope to achieve this career goal by both producing research that can work to dismantle systems of oppression that have led to inequities and a negative campus climate and by assisting in the preparation of graduate students who will go on to careers working with college students in higher education and student affairs,” they said.