2001 Cohort – Institute for Recruitment of Teachers

Alumni Accolades, March 2026

Ben Vinson III, IRT ’92
Dr. Vinson was named a Harvard Hutchins Center fellow at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute. Congratulations!

Stephen Zrike, IRT ’01
Congratulations to Dr. Zrike, who was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey as Secretary of Education. Read the official press release on this appointment.

Karina Fernández Montilla, IRT ’06
Karina received the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Award by the ACE Women’s Network in Massachusetts. The award honors a champion of change whose vision and contributions are focused on changing structural systems for the advancement of women in Massachusetts colleges and universities. Read more about the award and Karina’s work.

Karina also received a staff recognition award at the Black History Month Showcase that recognizes staff and faculty at Hampshire College who often work behind the scenes without enough appreciation. Congratulations!

I am honored to have been nominated and to be recognized alongside colleagues who are so dedicated to supporting transformative educational spaces like Hampshire College.

Alumni Accolades, March 2024

Shani Mott, IRT ’97
Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of Dr. Mott who passed away earlier this month. Shani was a lecturer in Africana Studies and the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University. An obituary is posted on the university’s website. To learn more about Dr. Mott’s legacy read the NYT article.

In Memoriam – Shani Mott, IRT ’97

Heather Moore Roberson, IRT ’01/’10
Heather is recognized by the PA Chamber for Black Owned Business in their compilation of 100 Black Trailblazers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

JT Roane, IRT ’08
Roane’s book Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place (New York: NYU Press, 2023) won the Pauli Murray Book Prize. Roane and other winners were honored at the 2024 AAIHS conference, hosted by The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.

Aesha Mustafa, IRT ’16
Mustafa has been nominated for the 2024 Washtenaw Community College/Parkridge Black Business Community Impact Award. She is a co-owner of Integrative Empowerment Group, PLLC.

GJ Sevillano, IRT ’18
GJ is a recipient of the Philip Amsterdam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award by The George Washington University. This is one of the university’s highest teaching honors and recognizes GJ’s work in the classroom and contributions to the educational process at the university.

Associate Director & Manager of Programs Update, March 2023

Dear IRT Community,

As IRT enters the Spring season, we are continuing to advise scholars as they manage their graduate school acceptances and financial packages. We are encouraging them to savor the joy and acknowledge their efforts in this milestone. We are so very proud of them. As we well know, keeping up with coursework, working multiple jobs, participating in campus activities and applying to graduate schools is a fine balancing act.

We are also in the midst of reviewing applications for our next IRT scholar cohort who will begin their programming year with a 4 week virtual Summer Institute beginning in late June. By remaining virtual, all accepted scholars will have access to IRT faculty, College and University Consortium partners and all programming content. As with other organizations and institutions in service of diversifying the teaching profession, pivoting to increase opportunity and center equity remains the core of IRT’s work.

Alumni Accolades, November 2021

~1998 Cohort~

Reginald Wilburn, IRT ’98
Congratulations to Reginald who has been appointed Dean of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Texas Christian University. Wilburn earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in English from the University of Connecticut, and his B.A. in English from the University of the District of Columbia.

~2001 Cohort~

Brighid Dwyer, IRT ’01
Brighid was named Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania beginning in December. Congratulations to Brighid on this appointment. She received her undergraduate degree in sociology from UCLA and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

~2005 Cohort~

Monica Muñoz Martinez, IRT ’05
Monica was named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. The MacArthur Fellowship is unrestricted and unofficially known as the “Genius Grant.” The MacArthur Foundation considers that the fellowship “is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential.” Congratulations, Monica, on this prestigious award.