Shawn Savage Selected for UC Berkeley Visiting Scholars Program

Shawn Savage, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at UNCW’s Watson College of Education, has been selected for Cohort 2 of the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity (CREEO) Visiting Scholars Program.

Launched in 2024, the national program provides tenure-track scholars with time, resources and opportunities for collaborative research, writing and mentorship alongside the CREEO team.

Savage is one of four scholars selected for the 2026 cohort. He will participate in a summer research project with Associate Professor Travis J. Bristol and the CREEO team in June and July.

“As an access- and justice-focused scholar, I am honored to be selected alongside exceptional faculty from across the country for this second cohort,” Savage said. “UC Berkeley is one of the nation’s leading research universities, and the work CREEO is doing to advance equity and scholarship is inspiring. I look forward to advancing my research agenda with the support of Dr. Bristol and the CREEO team this summer.”

Savage serves as program coordinator for the Curriculum and Instruction doctoral concentration in Watson’s Department of Educational Leadership. His interdisciplinary scholarship examines access and justice across K-12 and higher education, with a focus on the experiences of Black youth and men through justice-centered qualitative methodologies.

Selection to the CREEO Visiting Scholars Program marks another milestone in the growing national recognition of Savage’s teaching, research and service.

He was selected as a 2021-23 Emerging Scholar for the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity. In 2022, he was named an Intersectional Qualitative Research Methods scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park. He also was selected as an inaugural Curriculum and Pedagogy Fellow by the George Washington University for 2023-24. In 2025, he was named an Asa G. Hilliard III and Barbara A. Sizemore Research Fellow on African Americans and Education by the Organizational Disparities Laboratory and Urban Education Collaborative. The research fellows gathered during the 2025 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

“The opportunity as a CREEO Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley affirms the significance of my research and the importance of continuing this work,” Savage said. “I’m excited to collaborate with scholars who share my commitment to educational equity and justice.”

The Center for Research on Expanding Educational Opportunity at UC Berkeley’s School of Education is dedicated to advancing equity and transforming educational systems through research, partnerships and practice. Other scholars selected for Cohort 2 include Stephany Cuevas, assistant professor of education at Chapman University; Lizette Navarrete-Burks, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Northern Colorado; and Richard Warren Jr., professor at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and chair of education executive policy for the Moore-Miller Administration.