Derric I. Heck

Derric Heck is a PhD candidate in the Race, Inequality, and Language in Education program in the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He joined the Gardner Center in 2021 as a Graduate Research Assistant. Derric’s research interests center on teacher education and the intersection of teachers’ racial identity, practice, and sociopolitical contexts. Prior to coming to Stanford, Derric was the Leroy Irvis Equity & Social Justice Fellow at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Educational Studies Association, the Pennsylvania Council for International Education, and 100 Black Men of Western Pennsylvania. Heck, in partnership with the U.S. Departments of State and Education, is a 2017 Fulbright-Hays grant recipient. He is an inaugural UDREAM (Urban Design) Fellow at the Remaking Cities Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a contributing author to “Critical Race Theory in Teacher Education: Informing Classroom Culture and Practice.” Heck has presented his scholarship at the inaugural Teach Africa Conference at the University of Pittsburgh; the Conference of the Pennsylvania Council for International Education; and the annual meeting of the American Educational Studies Association. His service-centered research in international education includes the Cheery Children Educational Center in Kibera, Kenya; Wolaita-Sodo University in Sodo, Ethiopia; the Catholic University of Applied Sciences in Cologne Germany; and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels, Belgium. Derric holds an M.Ed. in Social and Comparative Analysis in Education from the University of Pittsburgh and a BS in Architectural Studies from Florida A&M University.