Bio


Prior to her doctoral studies, Subini Ancy Annamma was a special education teacher in both public schools and youth prisons. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. Her research critically examines the ways students are criminalized and resist that criminalization through the mutually constitutive nature of racism and ableism, how they interlock with other marginalizing oppressions, and how these intersections impact youth education trajectories in urban schools and youth prisons. Further, she positions students as knowledge generators, exploring how their narratives can inform teacher and special education. Dr. Annamma’s book, The Pedagogy of Pathologization (Routledge, 2018) focuses on the education trajectories of incarcerated disabled girls of color and has won the 2019 AESA Critic’s Choice Book Award & 2018 NWSA Alison Piepmeier Book Prize. Dr. Annamma is a past Ford Postdoctoral Fellow, AERA Division G Early Career Awardee, Critical Race Studies in Education Associate Emerging Scholar recipient, Western Social Science Association's Outstanding Emerging Scholar, and AERA Minority Dissertation Awardee. Dr. Annamma’s work has been published in scholarly journals such as Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, Review of Research in Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Theory Into Practice, Race Ethnicity and Education, Qualitative Inquiry, among others.

Academic Appointments


Administrative Appointments


  • Associate Professor, Stanford University (2019 - Present)
  • Assistant Professor, University of Kansas (2015 - 2019)
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Denver (2014 - 2015)
  • Assistant Professor, Indiana University-Indianapolis (2013 - 2014)

Honors & Awards


  • Critics Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association (2019-2020)
  • Emerging Scholar Award, Critical Race Studies in Education Association (2019-2020)
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, Ford Foundation (2018-2019)
  • Alison Piepmeier Book Prize, National Women’s Studies Association (2018-2019)
  • Division G Early Career Award, American Educational Research Association (AERA) (2017-2018)
  • Outstanding Emerging Scholar, Western Social Science Association (2017-2018)
  • Faculty Achievement Award for Promising Scholar, University of Kansas School of Education (2017-2018)
  • Outstanding Doctoral Candidate of 2013, University of Colorado Boulder (2012-2013)
  • AERA Dissertation Minority Fellowship in Education Research Award, American Educational Research Association (2012-2013)
  • Honorable Mention, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Award, University of Colorado, Boulder (2012-2013)
  • School of Education Fellowship, University of Colorado, Boulder (2008-2013)
  • Dual Endorsement-Special Education & English as A Second Language Fellowship, University of Colorado at Boulder (2006-2008)

Professional Education


  • Ph.D., University of Colorado Boulder, Educational Equity & Cultural Diversity, Social, Multicultural and Bilingual Foundations (2013)
  • M.A., University of Colorado Boulder, Dual Endorsement: Special Education & English as a Second Language (2008)
  • B.S, University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh, Special Education (2002)

Research Interests


  • Equity in Education
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Special Education

2023-24 Courses


Stanford Advisees


All Publications