Lynnette Mawhinney

Lynnette Mawhinney is Chair of the Department of Urban Education and Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark, where she also serves as Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Academic Initiatives. She is affiliated faculty in the Africana Studies Department and contributes to the Global Urban Studies/Urban Systems Ph.D. program.

Dr. Mawhinney earned her bachelor's degree in Secondary Education/English and Communications from Penn State University, with a minor in Movement Science. She later earned her Masters and Ph.D. in Urban Education from Temple University.

Her research focuses on the professional lives of urban teachers and pre-service teachers (with specific attention to teachers of color), the schooling experiences of urban youth, biracial identity development, and autoethnographic approaches in educational settings. She has published extensively in both U.S. and internationally focused peer-reviewed journals, with particular emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in K-12 urban schools. Her scholarly work bridges academic research with practical applications for improving educational outcomes.

Dr. Mawhinney has received numerous prestigious awards for her scholarly contributions:

• National Association for Multicultural Education's (NAME) Multicultural Children's Publication Award (2022)
• Notable Social Studies Trade Book Award for the National Council for Social Studies and the Children's Book Council (2021)
• American Educational Studies Association's (AESA) Critics Choice Book Award (2020)
• American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Division K award for Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education (2018)
• Bronze Award for The Scholarly/Technical/Scientific Journal for Association Trend (2018)
• Fulbright Core Scholar at the University of Bahrain (2013-2014)
• 2025 Huberman Award for Outstanding Scholarship on the Lives of Teachers

Dr. Mawhinney actively mentors future educators and has advised numerous students in the Urban Education program. Her consulting work includes school equity audits, program evaluations, and workshops for K-12 students on writing, art, and creativity. She has secured various grants to support her research on teacher recruitment and retention, particularly focusing on teachers of color, and regularly presents her work at national and international conferences.