Faculty Spotlight: LSI’s Celia Reddick Emphasizes Hope Through Education
By: Stephen Stone | Published:
Florida State University’s Celia Reddick is an embodiment of the mission of the Learning Systems Institute (LSI) – providing critical research to enhance teacher education worldwide.
As an assistant professor of education and international development with a joint appointment at LSI and in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, Reddick’s work centers on teaching in settings of forced migration, specifically focusing on refugee children, their families and the schools they enter after displacement.
As someone who has been featured on leading podcasts like FreshEd and in notable journals like “Comparative Education Review,” Reddick says her biggest takeaway from her research is the vital part teachers play in providing supportive spaces for young people who have been displaced.
“I really believe in the central role of teachers in young people’s lives, and my research is bearing that out as well,” Reddick said. “When a teacher goes the extra mile, and tries to help a student understand, to form a friendship with another kid and to use a familiar language, that makes all the difference in the world.”
Reddick has seen firsthand in East Africa, particularly in Uganda and Rwanda, the connectivity of hard-working teachers alongside dedicated refugee families. She admires these families for persevering in language and learning despite facing their own adversities.
“The most salient idea that I hope comes out of my work is how hard refugee young people are working in schools where they don’t have claims to citizenship,” Reddick said. “They’re often navigating new languages, a new culture, a new environment, and yet are working hard to find educational opportunity, even in these impossible circumstances.”
Reddick was inspired to pursue a professional pathway into refugee education after serving as a New York City Teaching Fellow in the public school system. Building her teaching roots in a city with the largest population in the United States, Reddick was introduced to classes filled with children from across the world.
She became interested in understanding the kinds of educational experiences her refugee students had before coming to the United States. That curiosity led her to pursue a teacher trainer position in Uganda where she worked with Ugandan education experts to develop literacy curriculum for new teachers.
After attending Harvard and getting her doctorate in education, where she focused on forced migration and multilingualism in schools, Reddick eventually found her way to FSU in 2024 with LSI. Reddick’s experience paired perfectly with an institute dedicated to improving learning and human performance globally.
“Florida State has been so great and such a wonderful place to do this,” Reddick added. “I have the good fortune of being based at the Learning Systems Institute, as well as in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Department. This means I have two worlds of colleagues. I’m fortunate in that way.”
Reddick and her colleagues recently worked together on a seed grant funded by LSI to perform transformational work with resettled refugees in the U.S. She recently received a grant through the Jacobs CIFAR Research Fellowship to conduct comparative work in Colombia, Uganda and Germany.
Wherever her work takes her, the value of education is widely recognized.
“What I heard over and over again in Kampala, Uganda, was families saying the education that kids were getting was their investment in the future,” Reddick said. “That after displacement, their educational opportunities were the path forward for these kids. And I’m hearing that from kids here in the U.S.”
Those comments reinforce the belief of many refugee families that economic stability and opportunity are claimed through classroom learning. As someone who examines the work of teachers, families and international organizations to help create these opportunities, Reddick assists with projects that make a positive impact for refugees.
“It’s gratifying to feel that you might be making small, incremental progress, but the truth is, I’m learning so much as we go that it feels like it’s a collaborative process,” Reddick said. “It’s not me thinking of something that’s used, it’s us creating and learning together, and that’s been the real work.
“It’s very humbling being in classrooms where there are 10 languages represented, the teachers speak multiple languages and everyone is making it work.”
Through her research at FSU, Reddick is ensuring that education remains not just a system, but a source of dignity, belonging and hope for displaced students worldwide.