Conference Address Speakers
We are honored to feature a distinguished lineup of address speakers at this year’s conference. These individuals will deliver keynote, plenary, and featured addresses designed to inspire, challenge, and set the tone for the event. Learn more about each speaker below and the unique perspectives they bring to our shared work.
Plenary Speakers
Dr. Elavie Ndura
Dr. Elavie Ndura is a globally recognized peacebuilder, educator, and executive coach with more than 40 years of transformative leadership across education, conflict resolution, and intercultural communication. As founder and president of Banana Tree Consulting & Coaching LLC, she guides leaders and teams worldwide to transform conflict, cultivate unity in diversity, and create communities where all can thrive.
A professor of education at the University of Washington Tacoma, Dr. Ndura’s interdisciplinary work bridges scholarship and practice. Her pioneering contributions—spanning seven books and over 30 scholarly publications—integrate intercultural peace education with conflict transformation, earning her the Peace and Justice Studies Association’s Peace Educator of the Year Award.
Dr. Ndura is known for her deeply interactive keynotes and workshops that spark reconciliation, empower collaboration, and unlock the power of mindful communication. She equips individuals and institutions with the tools to foster inclusive excellence, resolve conflict with civility, and lead meaningful change—whether in schools, boardrooms, or global communities.
She has engaged thousands in the urgent work of reimagining social cohesion and advancing beloved community. Her notable career accomplishments include testifying before the U.S. Congress on “Ethnic relations and Burundi’s struggle for sustainable peace” in 2015 and “Promoting peace and security for women in African nations” in 2013 as well as meeting with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in 2024 as a member of an invited international delegation of peace scholars and educators. Yet she holds most dearly her role as a mother and grandmother.
Unity in Diversity: A Transformative Vision for Leadership, Literacy, and Lasting Change
Address Date: Friday, December 5, 2025
Address Time: 4:45pm – 6:00pm PST
In an era marked by deepening social divides and political polarization, cultivating civil literacies that support productive action across differences is both a moral imperative and a practical necessity. This keynote will offer a transformative vision for advancing leadership and literacy that fosters unity in diversity—grounded in Dr. Elavie Ndura’s Equity Leadership Framework. Drawing on over four decades of experience in conflict transformation, equity-centered leadership, and mindful communication, Dr. Ndura will explore how educational leaders and literacy scholars can reimagine their work as acts of bridge-building and community healing.
The address will illuminate how unity in diversity can be realized by nurturing deep self-awareness, inclusive vision, and high intercultural competency in ourselves and our institutions. Through compelling storytelling and evidence-informed insights, Dr. Ndura will call on educators to become equity-minded changemakers who embrace human interdependence and engage in difficult conversations with compassion and clarity. Participants will be invited to reflect on their own leadership and scholarship, and to consider how fostering inclusive excellence through literacy can transform lives and societies. Ultimately, this keynote will challenge and inspire the LRA community to lead with courage, listen across difference, and create lasting change—one word, one act, and one relationship at a time.
Integrative Research Review Panel
From Equitable Measurement to Intervention: How Theoretical and Methodological Pluralism Drives My Literacy Research
Address Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025
Address Time: 10:15am – 11:45am PST
Abstract:
Bong Gee Jang
Bong Gee Jang is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at Syracuse University (SU), where he investigates equitable literacy assessment, disciplinary literacy, and critical quantitative (QuantCrit) approaches. A former chair of the Department of Reading and Language Arts, he now directs SU’s Reading Specialist M.S. and Literacy Education Ph.D. programs, the Community Based Literacy Clinics, and the Critical Quantitative Research Group. He also serves as one of the lead editors of the Journal of Literacy Research.
Corrine M. Wickens
Corrine M. Wickens is a professor of literacy education. Professor Wickens’s research examines issues of gender and sexualities, adolescent literacy, and curriculum. Her current project analyzes more than 50 LGBTQ+ young adult novels through the disparate lens of modernist, postmodernist, and post-postmodernist theoretical paradigms. She has published in such journals as Journal of Literacy Research, Sex Roles, TESOL Quarterly, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, and Urban Review.
Towards Queer Academic Third Spaces: Bridging Disciplinary Divides
Address Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025
Address Time: 10:15am – 11:45am PST
Abstract:
Taking Seriously the Expertise and Concerns of Scholars, Teachers, and Communities of Color in Reading Instruction
Address Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025
Address Time: 10:15am – 11:45am PST
Abstract:
Tiffany M. Nyachae
Tiffany M. Nyachae is an Assistant Professor of Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University. Informed by her experiences as a middle school teacher, her research portfolio includes design-based research studies of learning, learning environments, and literacy development in social justice literacy workshops for youth of Color. Dr. Nyachae earned her Ph.D. in Literacy Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and the Science of Learning at the University at Buffalo (SUNY).
Dianna Townsend
Dr. Dianna Townsend, Professor of Literacy Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, studies the language development of adolescents, with specific attention to multilingual learners and vocabulary. She examines both the unique language demands of the disciplines and effective instructional strategies to help students understand and use the language of the disciplines. Dr. Townsend’s research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education.
Honoring Language, Identity, and Literacy Development in Intervention Research with Multilingual Adolescents
Address Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025
Address Time: 10:15am – 11:45am PST
Abstract: