Brandi Nicole Hinnant-Crawford, associate professor of educational leadership at Clemson University in South Carolina, has been awarded the 2026 Gloria J. Ladson-Billings Outstanding Book Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.
The annual award is presented to an author or book that significantly contributes to the knowledge base of educator preparation. Dr. Hinnant-Crawford was recognized for the recently released second edition of her book, Improvement Science in Education: A Primer (Myers Education Press, 2025), which discusses the methodology of improvement science, centering equity and justice as the purpose for continuous improvement.
Through her research, Dr. Hinnant-Crawford seeks to expose policies and practices related to exploitation, domination, and marginalization while simultaneously exploring remedies to alleviate the impact of those policies and practices. She studies equity, inclusion, and access in P-16 education, as well as organizational improvement. In addition to her latest award-winning book, Dr. Hinnant-Crawford is the author or editor of numerous publications, including Multiculturalism in Higher Education: Increasing Access and Improving Equity in the 21st Century (Information Age Publishing, 2020).
Dr. Hinnant-Crawford earned bachelor’s degrees in English and communication from North Carolina State University. She received her master’s degree in urban education policy from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and her Ph.D. in educational studies from Emory University in Atlanta. Prior to joining the Clemson faculty in 2022, Dr. Hinnant-Crawford taught at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.
