Living Well When You’re Busy: Dear Mentor Podcast

Professor López Turley directs the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, which brings together data, research, engagement, and action to improve lives. In 2011, she founded the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC), a research-practice partnership between Rice University and eleven Houston area school districts, representing over 700,000 students. A program of the Kinder Institute, HERC works to improve educational equity by connecting research to policy and practice, working directly with district leaders. She directed HERC from 2011 to 2022, during which she raised over $30M so that school districts would not have to pay for research. She also founded the National Network of Education Research-Practice Partnerships, which connects and supports over 60 partnerships between research institutions and education agencies throughout the country. She is a graduate of Stanford and Harvard and is originally from Laredo, Texas.

Cynthia Prescott is Professor and Chair of the Department of History and American Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota. Her publications include Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory. She seeks to provide context for local debates about controversial monuments through her website, public presentations, editorials, and a classroom role-playing game. She lives in Grand Forks, North Dakota, with her husband, two daughters, and a pandemic puppy.