Dr. Conrad is passionate about K-12 and teacher education that support educational equity and justice — as a teacher educator, educational researcher, parent and community member. Her research focuses on understanding teacher learning, identities and instructional shifts towards justice-oriented practices in social studies and democratic/civic education, particularly with discussion — and inquiry-based teaching. Prior to joining OSU-Cascades, she served as research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, postdoctoral research fellow at Temple University, and as teaching faculty at the University of Washington and Seattle University.

Before earning her doctorate, she taught for eight years in Seattle Public Schools (mostly Title I contexts) and as an experiential educator with multiple outdoor and environmental nonprofits. She was awarded AERA Division K’s Outstanding Dissertation Award and the NCSS Social Justice Social Studies Research Grant, and her writing appears in Teachers College Record, Theory & Research in Social Education, Teaching & Teacher Education, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Qualitative Research, Multicultural Perspectives and others. Her work has been funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the National Council for the Social Studies, PEO International and the University of Washington’s Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies.