Assistant Professor Hadis Anahideh honored by American Educational Research Association
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Assistant Professor Hadis Anahideh and her collaborators have been named the recipients of the 2025 AERA Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for their paper “Inside the Black Box: Detecting and Mitigating Algorithmic Bias Across Racialized Groups in College Student-Success Prediction” published in AERA Open.
The award is one of the highest honors given by AERA, recognizing the most outstanding article published in its journal within a given year. It is awarded based on scholarly merit, methodological rigor, and the article’s impact on advancing educational research.
Anahideh collaborated with Denisa Gándara, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Matthew P. Ison, visiting assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, and Lorenzo Picchiarini, a UIC graduate and a continuous improvement engineer at Interlake Mecalux.
“I am honored and humbled by the news. It’s incredibly rewarding to have our work recognized by AERA, especially given the high caliber of research published across its journals. This recognition affirms the importance of critically examining algorithmic systems in education and motivates us to continue pursuing research that promotes fairness and accountability in data-driven decision-making. It signifies that our work has made a substantial contribution to both the academic community and public discourse on educational equity,” said Anahideh, the director of the Optimal Learning and Exploration Laboratory at UIC.
The research identifies how predictive analytics tools used in higher education can produce racially biased outcomes, particularly by underestimating the potential of racially minoritized students. By bringing these disparities to light and proposing methods to mitigate them, the researchers’ work aims to inform the development of fairer, more transparent predictive systems.
“Ultimately, this can help ensure that all students—regardless of their background—are assessed and supported equitably, with institutional resources better aligned to their individual potential,” Anahideh said. “Our goal remains to ensure that data-driven tools in education are not only technically sound but also socially responsible.”