Assistant Director, Center for Asian American Studies, College of Liberal Arts.
Prior to pursing doctoral studies in Curriculum & Instruction, Mohit taught dual language (Spanish/English) in Austin, TX at the upper elementary level for 7 years. He has also worked as a teacher, curriculum developer, teacher trainer and volunteer in Nicaragua, Guatemala, India and Palestine since 2004. His research interests include the language and literacy practices of Asian American youth; bi/multilingual teacher preparation; diversity, authenticity and representation of Asian and Arab American children and families in children's literature; and humanizing pedagogies and research practices.
At the university level, he has been an assistant instructor (AI) for Foundations of Bilingual Education, Bilingual Language Arts Methods, Acquisition of Languages and Literacies. Additionally, he has designed and taught courses with the Center for Asian American Studies (CAAS) in Asian American Studies and Asian American History. Mohit volunteers regularly with the Asian American Resource Center (AARC) to bring culturally responsive educational programming to Asian American children and families, with Trúc Viêt as a volunteer ESL tutor, and with newcomer students at a local elementary school.
He is completing a graduate portfolio in Asian American Studies as part of his degree.
Critical Race Theory; AsianCrit; Critical Migration Studies; Newcomer and migrant student language and literacies; Intergenerational Storytelling; Oral History and Archival Praxis; Multilingual Education; Ethnic Studies; Anti-Racist Pedagogies
Maria E Franquiz (Supervisor)
Examines ethnographic language and literacy practices in K-12 classrooms, specifically focusing on how Latinx critical race theory explains the relationship between heritage language and culture and the evolving identities of future teachers.
Board Secretary, Asian American Community Health Initiative (AACHI)(2022 - 2024)
Education Policy Fellow, Asian Texans for Justice(2022)
Mehta, M. (2022). Using Digital Archives to Teach Early South Asian American Histories,. Social Studies for the Young Learner, 34(3), 19–24.. (View)
Mehta, M.P.. & Pandy, L.G.. (2022). Stories of our Elders: Creating an Online Space to Safeguard our Stories in Response to Anti-Asian Xenophobia. Language Arts, forthcoming. (View)
Batt, J.. & Mehta, M.. (2022). Still Can't Say Namaste?!: Making Asians and Asian Americans Visible in the School-Based Mindfulness Movement. Mindful Social Studies: Cultivating Social and Emotional Development for 21st Century Citizenship (9781666907995ed.): Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield. (View)
Mehta, M. & Beskrowni, A. (2022). Book Review for "The Tops of the Trees" (Kao Kalia Yang, 2021). Journal of Language and Literacy Education (JOLLE). (View)
Travel Award, AERA SIG: Research into the Education of Asian Pacific Americans (REAPA) (2022 - 2022)
Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Graduate Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin (2022 - 2023)
R.A.I.S.E Award, Asian and Asian American Faculty Association (AAFSA)-UT Austin (2021 - 2021)
Alexander Caswell Ellis Fellowship in Education, University of Texas at Austin College of Education (2019 - 2023)
The Tensions of Representation: A Critical Content Analysis of Recently Published Desi Young Adult Novels, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, Mohit Mehta, American Education Research Association, San Diego (2022)
Beyond Migrants and Weavers: A Critical Look at Central American Children's Literature, Mohit P. Mehta, Mónica Pineda, National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), Anaheim, CA (2022)
Critical Global Literacies for Central America, Mohit P. Mehta, Mónica Pineda, Critical Global Literacies Summer Institute, Austin, Texas (virtual) (2022)
Oral History/Testimonio Praxis in a Bilingual Education Teacher Preparation, Mohit Mehta, Monica Pineda, National Association of Bilingual Education (NABE), New York, NY (2022)
Silences, Hesitations and Refusals: Intergenerational Memory Work in an Introductory Course in Asian American History, Mohit Mehta, American Education Research Association (AERA), San Diego, California. (2022)
Storytelling as Collective Action, Erin Krafft, Mohit Mehta. 11th International Conference on Education and Justice, Virtual (2021)
Adding Complexity and Critical Understanding to the Diversity of Asian Americans through Literature, Archives & Children's Photography., Mohit Mehta, Tran Nguyen Templeton, Noreen Naseem Rodríguez. UT Hemispheres Critical Literacies for Global Citizens., Austin, Texas (virtual) (2021)
The Power of Community: Building Solidarity A Lado de Families and Communities, NCTE 2021 Virtual Convention, (2021)
What Kind of Asian Are You?: Countering the Model Minority Myth through Spoken Word and Text, Saba Khan Vlach, Mohit Mehta. National Council of Teacher of English (NCTE)., Denver, Colorado (Virtual) (2020)
¿Aprender español?: Contributions of Bilingual Education Research to the Teaching and Construct of Academic Spanish with Bilingual Teacher Candidates., Desirée Pallais-Downing, Mónica Pineda, Mohit Mehta & Irán Tovar. Literacy Research Association., Virtual (2020)
Geographies of Self: Transnational Latinx Teacher Candidates Explore Multimodal Stories., Patricia Abril González. Mohit Mehta. Literacy Research Association. Virtual Conference., Virtual (2020)
Multimodality and Translanguaging: Transforming Latinx Bilingual Pre-Service Teacher Development and Ideologies., Patricia Abril González. Mohit Mehta. Literacy Research Association (LRA)., Tampa, Florida (2019)
