Dana L. Mitra

Dana L. Mitra is Professor of Education Policy Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She is founding editor of the International Journal of Student Voice and Co-Editor of The American Journal of Education. Dana also works as a leadership coach, as well as offering workshops and coaching faculty on finding ones purpose as an academic and navigating the unspoken rules of the profession, including publishing and career advancement. Find her at https://danamitra.net/ Her most recent books are The Empowered Professor: Breaking the Unspoken Codes of Inequity and a companion workbook.

Dana also has published over 50 papers on the topics of student voice, civic engagement, and making a difference. She has a book coming out soon with Teacher’s College Press entitled The Empowered Professor: Breaking the Unspoken Codes of Inequity in Academia. Amazon now exclusively offers a companion workbook to the Empowered Professor. It is designed for individuals and groups to dive deep into spelling out the unspoken codes of their institutions and to define one's own purpose in academia.

The second edition of one of the top selling textbooks in Educational Policy and Leadership was published in 2022—Educational Change and the Political Process. This text is a a substantial revision of the document based on the dramatic changes in the political landscape at the federal, state and local levels since Trump's election, the rise of the Black Lives Matters movement, and the changes caused by the pandemic.

Dana holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Educational Administration and Policy Analysis. Previously books include Civic Education in the Elementary Grades: Promoting Engagement in an Era of Accountability and Student voice in school reform: Building youth-adult partnerships that strengthen schools and empower youth. She has served as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in 2012 to study child participation and educational reform in Bangalore, India. Her prior work experience includes teaching elementary school in the Washington, DC area and serving as the coordinator for two White House Conferences on Character Education.