Two doctoral students at LMU School of Education have been accepted into the Jackson Scholars Network for the 2025-2027 cohort. The Jackson Scholar program, administered by the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), provides formal networking, mentoring, and professional development for graduate students of color who intend to pursue a career in educational leadership.
Breana Baskerville, Ed.D. ’27 and Paloma Kumagai, Ed.D. ’27 are enrolled in SOE’s doctoral program in educational leadership for social justice. They were nominated by faculty member Manuel Ponce, director of SOE’s Institute for School Leadership and Administration.
Baskerville, an assistant principal for Bright Star Schools in Los Angeles’s historic Crenshaw neighborhood, leads with a commitment to equity and culturally affirming practices for Black and Brown students. Her dissertation, grounded in Khalifa, Gooden, and Davis’s (2016) Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) framework, will explore how teachers’ cultural competence and relationships with students of color shape belonging, identity, and engagement. With experience as a teacher, dean, and school leader, Baskerville is driven to dismantle white supremacy culture and reimagine schools as spaces of liberation.
Kumagai, an education leader with more than 14 years of experience, has served in school, district, and nonprofit leadership roles and sat on a school board where she led the creation of a diversity statement that remains active today. Her doctoral research at LMU focuses on how school systems support newcomers and recent immigrants by leveraging the cultural wealth of families and communities.
As required of all Jackson Scholars, Baskerville and Kumagai attended the UCEA annual convention, which took place in November 2025 in Puerto Rico, and will attend the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in April 2026 in Los Angeles. Through the program, they will advance their work as graduate students through mentorship and support, working towards creating change in education for students of color.