Dr. Sarah Diem is Interim Dean for the College of Education and Human Development and professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri. She is also a Faculty Affiliate in the Harry S. Truman School of Government and Public Affairs and the Qualitative Inquiry Program in the College of Education and Human Development. She researches the social, political, and geographic contexts of education, focusing primarily on how the politics and implementation of educational policies affect outcomes related to racial equity and opportunity within public schools. She is also interested in the ways in which current and future school leaders are being prepared to address racism in their school communities.

Dr. Diem received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Planning from The University of Texas at Austin. Her most recent co-authored book (with Anjalé D. Welton, University of Wisconsin–Madison), Anti-racist Educational Leadership and Policy: Addressing Racism in Public Education, challenges school leaders to question the racial implications of the policies they design and implement. In 2020, their book received the Taylor and Francis “Outstanding New Textbook” Award in Behavioral Sciences and Education, and in 2021 it received the AESA Critics’ Choice Book Award.

Areas of Expertise

• Educational politics and policy
• Educational policy implementation
• School desegregation