About Dr. Gnanadass

Edith Gnanadass is an associate professor of higher and adult education in the Department of Leadership. She has a Ph.D. in Lifelong Learning and Adult Education with a minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. Prior to her employment at the University of Memphis, she worked at the Goodling Institute for Family Literacy and the Institute for the Study of Adult Literacy at the Pennsylvania State University.

Using Critical Race Theory as an intervention into postcolonial theory, Dr. Gnanadass is a qualitative researcher whose interests are at the intersection of race, racialization, and adult learning focusing on anti-black racism, the racialized pandemic, the racialization of South Asian Americans, and decolonizing pedagogy. Her research has appeared in such venues as Adult Learning, The International Journal of Literacy, Language, and Numeracy, Journal of STEM Education, The Handbook of Distance Education and presented at various scholarly conferences. She is currently working on the following research projects: racialized experience of South Asian Americans, doctoral mentoring of racially minoritized STEM students, and mothering during the pandemic.

Dr. Gnanadass teaches courses on adult learning and research at the University of Memphis. She has taught courses on adult literacy, adult education, women’s and gender studies, and research at Penn State and University of Houston, Victoria. She has over 30 years of professional experience in adult, early childhood, and higher education working with diverse populations. This experience in the field combined with her research and teaching in adult education and women's studies gives her a broad perspective on both practical and theoretical issues of the field.

Dr. Gnanadass is the co-editor of Adult Education Quarterly and guest edited the Being Black in the U.S. themed issue of Dialogues in Social Justice: An Adult Education Journal. She is associated with academic organizations including, but not limited to the Commission for Professors of Adult Education (CPAE), American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE), and Adult Higher Education Alliance (AHEA). She serves on the board for AHEA and Literacy Mid-South and is on the Alumni Advisory Council for Unpacking Racism for Action series at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Education

• Ph.D. Lifelong Learning & Adult Education with a Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Minor, Pennsylvania State University
• M.B.A. International Business, Thunderbird School of Global Management
• B.B.A. Finance and Banking, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Sample Publications

• Gnanadass, E., & Merriweather, L. M. (in press). To transgress or not?: Critical theory as a framework for change. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education: Supporting an Update on Adult Learning Theory.
• Happel-Parkins, A., Azim, K., *Neal, M., *Barnes, K., & Gnanadass, E. (2024). Stories from the Pressure Cooker: U.S. women navigating motherhood and work during the COVID‐19 pandemic. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 8(2), 1-20.
• Gnanadass, E., & Merriweather, L. R. (2023). Structural silences in adult learning. In A. Belzer & B. Dashew (Eds.), Understanding the adult learner: Perspectives and practices (pp. 137-156). Routledge.
• Griswold, W., *Patel, M. P., & Gnanadass, E. (2023). ‘One person cannot change it; it’s going to take a community’: Traditional learning theories and community environmental education. Adult Learning, 35(1), 23-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/10451595221145206
• Gnanadass, E., & Merriweather, L. (2022). Restorying COVID-19: Faculty and graduate students teaching and learning in crisis. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education: The Covid-19 Pandemic and Other Ongoing Crises: Reflections, Innovations and Adaptations, 2022(173-174), 21-31.
• Gnanadass, E., Murray, K., & Vetter M. (2021). Narrating the immigrant experience: Three adult educators’ perspectives. Adult Learning, 32(1), 40-49.
• Gnanadass, E., & Sanders, Amelia Y. (2019). Gender still matters in distance education. In M. G. Moore & W. C. Diehl (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (4th ed.) (pp. 79-91). New York, NY: Routledge