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Dear POWER Members,
As we move through another exciting year, I want to take a moment to celebrate all that we have accomplished together and share what lies ahead for our POWER community. In May, your POWER Steering Committee met to conduct the leadership and business of the organization. I am deeply grateful to each Steering Committee member for their creativity, dedication, and vision as we continue expanding opportunities that benefit our members. One of the highlights of our discussion was reflecting on the tremendous growth in member engagement across POWER. Our community continues to thrive because of you. Thank you to everyone who is:
Interested in hosting a future POWER Meet Up? We'd love to hear from you! And if you're looking for another way to get involved, consider joining one of our committees. Learn more about committee opportunities here: https://www.womeninedresearch.com/committees.html We're also thrilled to see so many members taking advantage of our partnership with CONECT-Ed. Under the leadership of Dr. Angelique Aitken, members can participate in writing sessions on the first and third Fridays of each month, as well as professional learning opportunities with senior scholars. If you haven't joined yet, be sure to sign up through our Google Group using the link provided. Our listserv continues to be an invaluable resource for our community. Whether you're sharing job openings, research collaborations, funding opportunities, or other announcements, you're helping POWER members stay connected and informed. Thank you for making this such a vibrant and supportive space. A heartfelt thank you also goes to everyone who has supported POWER financially through merchandise purchases and donations. Your generosity helps sustain our organization and allows us to continue offering valuable programming and opportunities for our members. If you're looking for POWER merchandise—for yourself or for incoming and continuing students—you can browse our collection here: https://womeninedresearch.dashery.com/ POWER LEADERSHIP UPDATE As I conclude my two-year term as POWER President, I want to express what an honor it has been to serve this remarkable community. It has been a privilege to help expand member engagement and create new opportunities for connection, collaboration, and professional growth. Thank you for your enthusiasm, your leadership, and your commitment to one another. You make POWER an extraordinary organization. I am delighted to welcome our next POWER President, Dr. Jess Logan. I know POWER's future is in excellent hands, and I look forward to watching our organization continue to grow under her outstanding leadership. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Dr. Brandy Gatlin for her dedicated service as Vice President for Communications. We thank her as she rotates out of that role this year. Congratulations to Dr. Adrea Truckenmiller, who will serve as our next President-Elect. In addition, we welcome our two new Steering Committee members Drs. Rachel Schachter and Dr. Angelique Aitken. We look forward to the leadership and vision they will bring to the organization. Thank you all for being an essential part of POWER. Together, we're building a stronger, more connected community—and the best is still ahead. Cheers and thank you, Hope Gerde POWER President
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Dear POWER Members,
Reflecting on the first months of 2026, education continues to be under attack at all levels from early childhood to higher education. You may be feeling these impacts in your professional and personal lives as current events are impacting your research, teaching, outreach, and passions. One way to prevail in these challenging times is to create community, stand together, and move your important work forward to ensure your voice contributes to the conversation. The POWER leadership met in January to discuss what we have heard from you regarding building community and connections. In response, we are providing our members with multiple ways to connect—in person and virtually—with amazing education researchers in 2026. Our POWER meet ups at PCRC and CRIEI were well attended and rejuvenating! Thank you to everyone who attended. Below is a list of ways to connect with other POWER members this year. Specific dates and details will be released on the POWER listserv as the events draw near. POWER Meet ups: AERA/NCME April in Los Angeles, NRCEC June in Washington DC, SSSR July in Rotterdam, SREE September in Baltimore, and ASHA November in Indianapolis. **Please contact me if you are interested in supporting one of these POWER Meet Ups or if you have another Meet Up suggestion you would like to support. CONECT-Ed and POWER Partnership Writing Community Join a writing community! We meet first and third Fridays of each month through May from 1-2:30ET To join here is the link: https://groups.google.com/g/conect-ed Or email Dr. Aitken at [email protected] to join Also, Join for talks with Erin McTigue April 10 and Sara Hart May 8! Join a Hub POWER Hubs are networks of researchers committed to furthering the mission of POWER. Hubs are led by a coordinator who is a POWER member and meet regularly to network among and support their members. Find information about Hubs, joining a Hub or starting a Hub here: https://www.womeninedresearch.com/hubs.html Join a POWER Committee Get engaged with POWER by joining a POWER Committee. POWER includes several committees in which the more active work of the organization is completed—Awards, Communications, Membership, Professional Development & Mentoring. A brief description of each committee is included here: https://www.womeninedresearch.com/committees.html If you are interested in joining, please email me! Virtual POWER(ful) Conversations Mid-Career Conversations about research, leadership, and life Hope Gerde, Texas A&M University, Topic: Responding to Changes in Federal Funding in the US March 26 2:00 ET/1:00 CT/12:00 MT, 11:00 PT Registration and zoom link forthcoming Other community ideas are in the works so stay tuned. We are cheering you on for an amazing 2026. Let’s continue to support education research together! Cheers, Hope Gerde POWER President Dear POWER Members
Thank you to those of you who joined us at the POWER Meet Up at AERA and SRCD. It was great to see so many of you in person. I hope you all felt connected and supported! We engaged about 40 members at each event and members sported their POWER ribbons on their name badges for the duration of the conference. Keep an eye out for details for POWER Meet Ups for: The Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR) The Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) The Literacy Research Association (LRA) If you would like to host a POWER Meet Up at your favorite conference/meeting, please email me and we will help you organize the event. POWER MERCH! Congratulations to all of our new grads! While your grads will always be connected to you and your lab, help them connect to POWER, their early career networking organization. Support them to become members https://www.womeninedresearch.com/join.html and perhaps, celebrate them with some POWER merch. https://www.womeninedresearch.com/merch.html Or pick up some merch to wear at our next POWER Meet Up event! Your purchase of POWER merch provides a small donation to POWER! Back by Popular Demand! The POWER Professional Development committee is excited to announce the Summer Writing Workshop “Shut up and Write” to be held on May 27th 10-12 PST/11-1MST/12-2CST/1-3EST. https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/96374142444?pwd=ofACGR0CrkIK1bL2meBN9ZUsWBpZi6.1 We plan to focus on setting realistic goals and grounding in focusing on what you can control and where you can make progress. More than ever, we need our community for support and guidance! So, let’s get together to keep up our good work and continue to rock the world! Please register here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QksAeIuBS7JL2Pac3rstv84Cf4Lavaz7/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102891341480330113987&rtpof=true&sd=true We will be planning more events so please add your ideas on the registration sheet! Sending love and light to you all! The POWER Steering Committee is cheering you on! Hope Gerde POWER President Dear POWER Members,
I hope your new year is off to a great start! I am honored to serve as your next POWER president and look forward to leading this group of amazing researchers. First, I want to thank our past president, Jill Pentimonti, for her fantastic leadership as POWER leveled up to being a fully functioning non-profit and began raising funds to keep POWER running and serve our members. I am grateful for the innovation and ingenuity of our executive team. Second, I want to share some updates from our Steering Committee meeting that occurred January 22, 2025. Our 2025 POWER focus is member engagement! To that end, your Steering Committee has plans for several virtual and in-person opportunities to network with members across the year. Here are a few ways to get engaged with POWER:
I am looking forward to a fabulous year connecting with and championing as many of you as possible. As we engage together, I hope you find what you need from your POWER Community! Cheers, Hope POWER President connect, support, advocate. by Dr. Cheryl Varghese, PhD In April 2024, the Houston POWER Hub hosted a “speed dating” event that was attended by a group of education researchers across three different institutions. This was the second in-person event hosted since the formation of the Houston POWER Hub in 2020. Given the positive feedback about the event, we highlight three aspects of the event that worked well: 1. Opportunities for One-on-One Conversations We organized our networking event to follow a “speed dating” structure. We did this in hopes to (a) foster more meaningful connections with others, (b) lessen the discomfort that often arises from navigating networking events, and (c) help others meet new, unfamiliar people. This is a high-level overview of how we structured our event: Each attendee was given a number (1 or 2). Anybody assigned as a #1 had a fixed spot at a small table. 2s were “floaters” – that is they moved around to a different #1 seated at a table every 7-8 minutes. Over the span of an hour, we were able to complete about six to seven rounds. It is worth noting that some attendees expressed wanting more time to engage in conversations, but others enjoyed the 7-8 minute time length. We did our best to assign the same number to attendees from the same institution in order to increase chances of new meetings and collaborations. 2. Conversation Starters One of the things that makes social networking tough is starting a conversation that invites back-and-forth dialogue. At each table, we provided a list of *optional* conversation starters that included a mix of both personal and fun topics. Attendees were free to use or disregard the conversation starters based on their preferences. Here were some example conversation starters:
3. Diversified Research Interests/Specialization Attendees at the Houston POWER Hub event represented many different departments that intersect with education research – from STEM to language/literacy to neuroscience to communication sciences and disorders to early childhood education. In addition to a diverse set of research interests, attendees had different types of job positions. Some attendees had more traditional faculty positions, while others had positions at state agencies or research institutions. Attendees also included postdocs and doctoral students. The diversified research interests and job positions added different perspectives and voices to the conversations at the event. The Houston POWER Hub committee made intentional efforts to leverage personal and professional connections to advertise the event across and within departments. Ultimately, this helped to encourage attendance from a varied group of researchers. Author note: Cheryl Varghese, PhD is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Interventions, Texas State Initiatives at Children’s Learning Institute, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dear POWER,
I am writing as the current President of POWER with some exciting updates! I want to start off my note with a huge thank you to our two past Presidents, Emily Solari and Sara Hart, for all the amazing accomplishments they oversaw during their tenures, and for Hope Gerde stepping into the President Elect position, and Lori Skibbe now serving as VP of Finance. I’m going to start with the most exciting update - POWER is now officially a non-profit organization! Looking towards the future, we will be focused on the long-term health of POWER. Although we have no plans to have membership fees so that we can reach as many members as possible, we have set up a method to accept donations to support POWER. Donating is of course completely optional and at this point funds will go to keep POWER up and running. As donations grow, we will make additional plans for donated funds – if you have any ideas please feel free to reach out! To donate, all you have to do is click the DONATE button on the POWER website. We also now have POWER merch! The merch includes t-shirts, mugs, stickers, and tote bags - and the best part is a portion of the proceeds get donated to POWER. Visit the TeePublic website to order. I’ve purchased one of everything and love it all :). In the last two years, we have had additional exciting changes happen with POWER. We now have over 1000 members! We rolled out POWER Hubs, with the hope to bring more direct opportunities for connecting, supporting, and advocating to our membership. We have seen many of our members win awards, and just as importantly, members doing the hard task of asking to be nominated for awards or stepping up and nominating someone who was being missed. We have hosted numerous successful professional development and mentoring sessions. We continue to post new content to our resources page. We have hosted many virtual social events and in-person social events at conferences (so keep your eye out for information on events at upcoming conferences!). Our database continues to be a useful resource for finding collaborators, reviewers, nominees, and friends. Please use and recommend it to others. All of our committees have opportunities for new members to join to help serve POWER, so look out for a call coming soon for volunteers. Please feel free to use our listserv, you can email [email protected] to post. We welcome new Hub applications, if you see a need for community around a topic or geographical area. Recommend each other for opportunities! And as always, we are open to feedback from our members. Please continue to connect, support, and advocate for each other! Jill Pentimonti Nearly all award, job, or school applications require letters of support and these letters matter! Letters of support are used by review committees to authenticate nomination statements and learn about the exceptional qualifications of the nominee. These letters are highly valued as evidence of the extraordinary work of the applicant. In fact, I have experience in which revising only the letters of support from a previously non-winning application resulted in a win. Letters of support influence the outcome!
If these letters are so important, who should write these letters and how will you ask? When considering letter writers, it can be difficult to know where to begin. To enhance your likelihood of success, there are several criteria to consider before selecting a writer and making the ask! Who should write my letter of support? Identifying letter writers can be tricky business. While you may be able to think about many people who would say nice things about you (no you cannot ask your mom), there are several criteria to consider as you make your selection. 1) Is the person a previous recipient of the award or position? Previous winners of the award or position you are nominated for are highly regarded by the organization and committee bestowing this award. In addition, previous awardees will have particular insight into the organization that may impact how they frame their comments about you and your work. 2) Does this person meet the requirements of the award or position ? Awards may have specific requirements/recommendations for nominators or letter writers. The specific award application will provide guidance regarding your selection. For example, an award may require letters from students and faculty, practitioner collaborators, letters from outside of your institution, letters from organization members, or a letter from your direct supervisor or mentee. It is essential to have a letter reflecting each required person in the application materials. Even when not specifically required, selecting a diverse group of writers can ensure writers speak to different strengths of your work. For example, for a faculty position select letter writers to share about your research and teaching excellence. 3) Does this person meet the criteria of the award or position? Awards and positions always have specific criteria that characterizes an exemplary candidate. Successful applicants select letter writers who meet these criteria. If you are applying to a research award, select writers who are excellent researchers. If you are applying to a teaching award, select writers who are exceptional educators themselves. Often award or position applications require a statement about the qualifications or the CV of the letter writers in order to frame their letter within the context of their expertise. 3) Is the person well known in the field for the criteria? After you have identified writers who meet the award criteria, ask yourself, “Is this person the top in this field?” If the writer must be an organization member, ask yourself, “Is this person active in the organization?” Ask the most prominent, active, or senior person who knows your work well enough to speak candidly about it. 4) Does the person know your work well? It is important that your writers know your work well. Informed writers can better identify which of your amazing attributes to highlight for any specific award. They will have specific evidence to provide to support the arguments they make about your expertise and extraordinary contributions to the field. Pragmatically, someone who knows you may be more likely to find the time to write your letter of support. 5) Is the person a strong mentor or advocate? If the writer is a strong mentor or advocate they are likely to be more invested in writing your letter than otherwise. At minimum, they will likely complete your letter on time. How Do You Invite Letter Writers to Write for You? I am always asked, “How well do I need to know my letter writers?” The answer is, it depends. Some letter writers you might know very well. For example, the award criteria may lead you to select your graduate advisor, a peer colleague, a student or a mentee. For other awards or positions, you may have met your writer just a few times at a conference, but they are on the steering committee for the awarding agency or are top in the field making them an excellent selection. Proactively prepare for soliciting letter writers by intentionally meeting folks at a conference or when they visit your institution. Ask to be introduced so you can at least begin your request email with, “I enjoyed our conversation when we met at…” Whether you know your letter writers well or not, there are some important steps you should take when inviting letter writers to write for you.
Once I write my first letter of recommendation, I am very happy to revise it for a new award or position. Thus, feel free to ask your same letter writers for multiple letters if you are applying to multiple awards or positions and the letter writer meets the criteria. Below we provide some example emails requesting letters of support for awards or positions. We hope you find them to be useful model texts as you Make the Ask to Seal the Deal! Example emails: Example #1 (unfamiliar) Dear Dr. XXXXX It was a pleasure talking with you about XXXXXX when we met at XXXXX conference. I am writing to ask if you would be willing to write a letter of recommendation for me for the XXXXXX award. I have included the criteria of the award here and hope you can speak to the importance of my research for under-resourced communities. I am attaching a draft letter for your convenience and my CV. The nomination package is due XXXX so please submit your signed letter on letterhead to XXXXXX at XXXXXXX.org. Please let me know if you are willing to submit a letter on my behalf. Sincerely, XXXXX I’m not sure where, but I recently read that writing letters of recommendation is “ubiquitous for academics or those following a research career.” Isn’t this the truth! It seems like a very short time ago that I was the student asking for a letter for graduate school or an award, but now, I am pretty consistently asked to write letters for students moving on in their academic careers. I know the weight that these letters can carry. I also know that I didn’t ever receive any sort of formal training or instruction on how to write an appropriate, impactful letter. If you are in the same boat, then you will love the series of posts that will be coming on our website over the next 6 months! Our first post, written by our very own Dr. Hope Gerde, focuses on how to ask for a letter of support. This post will be followed by one about writing letters of support for students for grad school and for faculty positions, with more to follow. We hope you find these helpful! Mindy Bridges Chair of the Professional Development Committee |
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