UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Mildred Boveda, associate professor of special education in the Penn State College of Education, has received the 2025 TED Social Justice Award from the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children. The national honor recognizes her contributions to equity in teacher education on behalf of teachers and youth with exceptionalities and their families.
“Dr. Boveda’s work reflects a profound commitment to equity and justice, redefining how teacher education prepares educators to meet the needs of all learners,” said Gwendolyn Lloyd, interim dean of the College of Education. “Her leadership in advancing intersectional competence, her mentorship of students and colleagues, and her dedication to collaborative approaches are transforming the field of special education. We are honored to see her nationally recognized with this prestigious award.”
Boveda was recognized Nov. 12 at the TED Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The award comes at a moment that she described as both challenging and deeply affirming for the field of special education.
“It’s very encouraging,” Boveda said. “The fact that people in my field who I may not know personally are resonating with the work that I’m doing, and taking the time to nominate me, is very encouraging — especially in these times where when there are increasing pressures around special education.”
At Penn State, Boveda is a faculty member in the Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling and Special Education and serves as professor-in-charge of the special education program. In that role, she works closely with undergraduate and graduate students, as well as doctoral candidates, whose research and professional goals focus on improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities and advancing equity in schools. Her nationally recognized scholarship on intersectional competence and collaborative teacher education has helped shape how teacher preparation programs think about diversity, equity and inclusion in special education and beyond.
“From this position, I see how all of us in special education are committed to advancing equity and social justice, because we are all committed to improving educational outcomes for students with disabilities,” she said. “At the same time, one identity marker is not telling the full story. Social justice is not just rooted in disability issues, but also in other equity-related topics and other ways that people are discriminated against. Those also matter to special education.”
For more than two decades, Boveda has grounded her work as an educator, researcher and teacher educator in the concept of “intersectional competence” — an approach that helps current and future teachers consider the multiple social identities their students, families and colleagues bring to classrooms and schools. Her scholarship also uses the term “intersectional consciousness” to describe how educators can develop a deeper awareness of those overlapping identities.
“Sometimes people are very uncomfortable talking about their social identities,” she said, noting that many preservice teachers in the United States continue to be white, middle-class women even as public school students represent a wide range of racial, cultural, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds. “Because we don’t talk about our social identity, we may assume that one identity marker — disability, race or gender, for example — tells a lot more than it should.”
Intersectionality, she explained, asks educators to look at “how multiple identity markers such as class, race, gender and ability shape teaching and learning,” as well as to reflect on their own school experiences and identities in consideration of how they might shape their assumptions about students and schools. To support that work, she has developed tools and protocols with guiding questions that make difficult conversations about social differences more manageable.
“Social justice is related to making sure that all people have access to a high quality of life, even if they are different,” Boveda said. “Creating tools that facilitate teachers’ understandings of identities also helps teachers’ understandings of social differences and the importance of assuring that, no matter how many diverse markers of identity a student has, they are going to receive a high-quality, thoughtful education.”
Boveda began her career as a special education teacher in Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida. Before she ever considered pursuing a doctorate or becoming a professor, she joined the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), which provided policy updates and research journals that shaped her early practice. She later served as president of a local CEC chapter and has held multiple leadership and speaking roles within TED.
“The organization really introduced and reinforced the importance of teachers engaging in research and policy,” she said. “It feels very encouraging that an organization that supported me early on in my career is now recognizing me for research that was shaped by the Council for Exceptional Children and by my time as a student and teacher in Miami-Dade Public Schools.”