Morita-Mullaney to receive a Purdue 2023 Trailblazer Award

Trish Morita-Mullaney will receive a Purdue University 2023 Trailblazer Award for outstanding mid-career research and scholarship.

Morita-Mullaney, associate professor of Literacy and Language in the College of Education, also holds a courtesy appointment in Asian American Studies program in the College of Liberal Arts. Her research focuses on the intersections between language learning, gender and race and how this informs the identity acts of educators of multilingual communities. Guided by critical and feminist thought, she examines how these overlapping identities inform the logics of educational decision making for multilingual families.

The Office of the Provost review committee found her work on the influences of educational and language policy at various levels and how it informs educational practices to be compelling, impactful, and trailblazing. “Your integration of basic and applied work in this field was viewed as promising a continued high impact in the future,” said the award letter received by Morita-Mullaney.

“As a translational scholar, I focus on transforming policy that is centered on multilingual immigrant communities,” said Morita-Mullaney. “My work is praxis oriented within multilingual communities, and thus varies in format including traditional research papers, white papers, community meetings, and social media campaigns. I am grateful that Purdue has recognized this as trailblazing the scholarship of engagement.”

Her nominator states: “Morita-Mullaney’s impact is recognizable through her scholarship, large-scale grant funding, and her direct impact to educational and language policy in Indiana and beyond. To date, Dr. Morita-Mullaney has secured nearly $13 million in external and internal funding to contribute to research, teaching, and engagement in ELL and bilingual education.”

Morita-Mullaney joined Purdue in 2013 as a visiting assistant professor and was promoted to assistant professor in 2015 and associate professor in 2021. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, a second master’s from Butler University, and her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. Morita-Mullaney is a licensed K-12 teacher, coach and administrator from Arizona and Indiana where she taught and led ELL adult education, middle and elementary school. With her deep and applied background, she has made Purdue’s English as a second language and dual language bilingual licensure program the largest in the state. Locally, she served as past president of the Indiana Chapter for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and nationally has been recognized for outstanding publications by the American Educational Research Association and TESOL International. For the Trailblazer Award, she will receive a plaque and a monetary prize. 

The committee will publicly present the award to Morita-Mullaney at the Faculty Awards Convocation on May 9, 2023.