Denise Dávila is a children’s literature and literacy education researcher. She works alongside communities to study children’s home, family, and local literacy practices. She investigate opportunities for alignment between children’s out-of-school literacy practices and the in-school literacy instruction children receive.
Dr. Dávila has received awards for her research. Early in her career, Dr. Dávila's work was recognized by the Hispanic Issues Research group of the American Education Research Association (AERA, 2013), the foremost research organization for education scholars. She was a fellow with the Cultivating New Voices of Scholars of Color program of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2012-2014). This is a highly selective mentoring program for early career scholars considered to be those most likely to make a significant impact in their areas of research. Additionally, Dr. Dávila won the prestigious Alan C. Purves Award (2016) for her article that appeared in Research in the Teaching of English titled, “#WhoNeedsDiverseBooks: Preservice Teachers and Religious Neutrality with Children’s Literature”. This annual award recognizes the author whose article is “judged as likely to have the greatest impact on educational practice”. Her program of research has been publicly and privately funded.