University of Utah Education Researchers Awarded $8 million for the Prison Education Action Research Lab (PEARL)

PR Newswire

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 4, 2025

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- University of Utah education researchers have been awarded $8 million to launch the first national center dedicated to prison education research and leadership.

A team led by Erin Castro, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy, will use the grant to establish the Prison Education Action Research Lab, or PEARL, to advance educational justice for people and communities impacted by incarceration.

"What we currently know about postsecondary education in prison comes largely from the disciplinary field of criminology," said Castro, who also serves as the associate dean for community engagement and access in the Office of Undergraduate Studies. "Housing the Lab in the College of Education demonstrates a distinct disciplinary and pedagogical approach to the work, situating incarcerated people as college students."

Research shows providing learning opportunities to incarcerated populations carries broad societal impacts beyond prison walls.

"We know that access to quality postsecondary education during incarceration strengthens families and improves public safety," Castro said. "We know the children of incarcerated learners have increased aspirations for education attainment and now we hope to tackle these kinds of questions empirically."

PEARL embodies the best of what higher education can be, said T. Chase Hagood, vice provost for student success. "Dr. Castro and her team are advancing a more just, more inclusive future for all learners. This is the kind of bold, evidence-driven innovation that transforms lives."

College of Education Dean, Frankie Laanan agrees. "Dr. Castro's dedication to postsecondary education for incarcerated individuals over the last eight years is a shining example of scholarship with real societal impact."

The grant comes from the Ascendium Education Group, a Madison, Wisc.-based philanthropic organization that promotes access to post-secondary education and workforce training.

PEARL's anchor project, called the Prison Education Research Initiative (PERI), is a first-of-its-kind multi-institutional study that will address urgent policy- and practice-relevant research questions.

Led by Castro and co-PI Jason Taylor, associate professor of educational leadership and policy, PERI will collect systematic and longitudinal data on PEP programs, their students and their outcomes. In partnership with 22 or more colleges and universities, PERI will link postsecondary and workforce outcome data with institutional data on incarcerated learners across a diverse range of academic pathways and modalities.

Bringing practitioners and researchers together in partnership, this initiative aims to strengthen data and evaluation capacity so that practitioners can use these data to best support incarcerated students and alumni.