Westby Summer 2025 Graduate
PRIME is honored to announce the Summer 2025 PhD conferral of Kathryn “Katie” Westby.
Katie completed her dissertation from afar while working full-time as Assistant Director
at a private Educational Therapy company in Connecticut since August, 2024. Her defense
was scheduled after the May article of graduates was posted, so we wanted to publicly
recognize Katie’s achievements. The title of her dissertation is We Exist Proudly: Disabled and Neurodivergent Teacher Candidates. Katie’s research looks at positioning and authority in mathematics classrooms as they
segregate—albeit not always physically—SWD (Students With Disabilities) and the effects
of this positioning in the development of SWD’s identities.
An active PRIME member during her time at MSU, Katie was involved in mentoring students and leading and serving on multiple committees—such as the Mathematics Learning Research Group (MLRG), PRIME Time, and others—as well as championing for equity for all. Her activities and engagement efforts led to her receiving not only university-level accolades, but also national recognition.
Katie received a 2023-24 MSU Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award (EDEIA) in February, 2024, which is awarded to individuals or teams who exhibit “exceptional and innovative contributions to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in teaching, research, programming, service, community outreach and organizational change.” Her nominators for this award, Dr Jennifer Green, Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics and Probability and PRIME, and Lisa Keller, Assistant Director and Academic Specialist in PRIME, emphasized that she “is an outstanding mentor, advocate, collaborator, and colleague, passionately striving for radical inclusive excellence in education and prioritizing DEI throughout her research, teaching, and community engagement.”
Later that year, Katie also made the PRIME community immensely proud after receiving
the 2024 Karen King Future Leader Award at the American Educational Research Association
(AERA) Annual Conference in April, 2024. Katie commented that it was an honor to have
been nominated for and to receive the award from the Research in Mathematics Education
Special Interest Group (SIG-RME) at AERA, and “I am so grateful to everyone who supported
me in this journey.” She also extended her thanks to “Drs. Jennifer Green, Tonya Bartell,
and Beth Herbel-Eisenmann for their letters of support and to the Awards committee
for their work.”
We congratulate Dr. Katie Westby for successfully defending her dissertation, her subsequent graduation, and for being an outstanding leader in mathematics education in the country! We wish her the best in her scholarly and professional pursuits!
