About RJEM

The 2024 RJEM Webinar Series: This year-long series consisted of three online conversations between educators, researchers, and community members on different aspects of early math teaching and learning from a racial justice perspective. Approximately 500 people in the U.S. and abroad participated in the series. The RJEM Webinar Series was free and open to the public.

The First National Meeting of Racial Justice in Early Mathematics (2024): A two-day, in-person event that convened approximately 110 people from across the country and from a range of expertise, including caregivers, community organizers, teachers, teacher educators, graduate students, researchers, and administrators. The National Meeting featured discussions on many issues, including family engagement and community mobilization, curriculum and teacher education, research, and school administration.

The 2023-24 RJEM Teaching Fellowship: A year-long program where a diverse group of six early childhood teachers from across the United States participated in professional development and mentoring activities (summer orientation, online seminars, individual mentoring sessions, and national meeting). Fellows developed a teacher inquiry project related to racial justice in their community, school, and classroom contexts. Findings and reflections were shared at the First National Meeting of Racial Justice in Early Math.

The 2022 Promising Math Conference: A two-day, online event that featured discussions on the impacts of white supremacy and anti-blackness on early math education. Over 130 participants had opportunities to reflect on these issues and (re)imagine educational practices that foster racial justice.

Danny Bernard Martin, RJEM Co-Chair & Founding Member, University of Illinois Chicago

Danny Bernard Martin is Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois Chicago. His research is focused on understanding the salience of racialization, socialization, and identity in Black learners’ mathematical experiences. Dr. Martin’s work is antithetical to perspectives that attempt to fix or repair Black learners. In his work, the ordinary brilliance of Black children is axiomatic. Martin is the author of the book “Mathematics Success and Failure Among African Youth” (2000/2006, Erlbaum), co-author of “The Impact of Identity in K–8 Mathematics Learning and Teaching” (2013, NCTM), editor of “Mathematics Teaching, Learning, and Liberation in the Lives of Black Children” (2009, Routledge), and co-editor of “The Brilliance of Black Children in Mathematics: Beyond the Numbers and Toward New Discourse” (2013, Information Age).

Donna Johson, RJEM Mentor & Founding Member, Erikson Institute

Donna Johnson is the Assistant Director of School Support for the Early Math Collaborative. She provides math-focused professional development and coaching for early childhood teachers and instructional support to school administrators. Donna holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Her passion to see children thrive academically led her from engineering into education, where she taught in nontraditional settings for over 15 years. Donna is the mother of five adult daughters and grandmother of seven. She loves reading, quilting, baking, and making strawberry jam.

Jennifer McCray, RJEM Co-Chair & Founding Member, Erikson Institute

Jennifer McCray is an Associate Research Professor at the Erikson Institute. She is the founding Director and current Principal Investigator of Erikson’s Early Math Collaborative, a collective of adult educators, researchers, and students working with hundreds of teachers throughout the U.S. and around the world to improve math instruction for young children. She is the lead author of the IES toolkit, “Teaching Math to Young Children” (out in 2026), and is a content expert for the National Center for Family Math. Jennifer’s research focuses on pedagogical content knowledge for teaching early mathematics, and she is the first editor of “Growing Mathematical Minds: Conversations between Developmental Psychologists and Early Childhood Teachers.”

Priscila Ulegis Pereira, RJEM Director & Founding Member, Erikson Institute & University of Illinois Chicago

Priscila Pereira serves as Project Director of the Racial Justice in Early Math Project at the Erikson Institute. A founding member of RJEM, she has been part of the project since 2019. Priscila is also a PhD Candidate in Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Illinois Chicago with a concentration in Black Studies and another in Gender and Women’s Studies. Her research focuses on the experiences of Black women and girls in mathematics education in Brazil, Black feminist research methodologies, gendered anti-blackness in math education, and racial justice in early mathematics.

Rebeca Itzkowich, RJEM Mentor & Founding Member, Erikson Institute

Rebeca Itzkowich is a founding member of RJEM and has been part of the project since 2019. In 2023-24 she served as a RJEM mentor and worked closely with RJEM Teaching Fellows. Rebeca was a teacher education faculty at Erikson Institute for over 20 years. Her research focuses on how issues of bilingualism and biliteracy impact identity and learning in the United States. As an immigrant from Mexico, her passion and commitment have been to support immigrant children and their families first as a teacher in Head Start and public schools, and then as a teacher educator. She is the mother of two grown bilingual and bi-literate sons.

Alyssa “Sisa” Pon Renie, RJEM Mentor & Founding Member, Erikson Institute

For more than two decades, Sisa Pon Renie has supported students, families and faculty in communities that are intentionally under-resourced from across the United States in a variety of capacities, such as a teacher in the primary grades, district administrator, and coach.  For the last eight years, she has been an instructional coach and professional learning facilitator immersed in early childhood education, specifically racial justice, early math and early literacy, at the Erikson Institute in Chicago. Sisa is passionate about advocating for humane and just spaces, systems and structures. She enjoys providing space for healing and facilitating opportunities for reflection and transformation of practice.