12 Researchers Elected to National Academy of Education
The National Academy of Education has welcomed a dozen new researchers into its select ranks.
"The newly elected members are pre-eminent leaders in their respective areas of educational research, and they are recognized for the extraordinary influence that they have had on education in the U.S. and abroad," said Academy President Susan Fuhrman in a statement.
The members are selected to lifetime membership in the academy based on "valuable contributions to educational research and policy development." The academy now has more than 160 active members, not counting members emeritus and foreign associate members.
The new members are indeed top experts in their fields, and Philip Perrin, a senior program officer for the academy, said they come from the usual academic disciplines represented by the academy's membership. Among the newcomers:
• P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, a professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., is studying multigenerational approaches to improving education and reducing poverty. Her current project, CareerAdvance, provides health-career training for low-income parents of young children enrolled in early-childhood education in Tulsa, Okla.
• Jeffrey Henig, a professor of education and politics at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York, examines how research and politics shape education policy, particularly with regard to school choice and charter issues.
• Susanna Loeb, an education professor at Stanford University and director of its Center for Education Policy Analysis, focuses on the economics of education, and most recently how schools evaluate the costs and benefits of effective teachers.
• Kathleen McCartney is an early-childhood professor and the outgoing dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has done extensive research on how early experiences and child care affects student development.
• Jeffrey Mirel, a history professor and chairman of the education school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, studies the history of school reforms, with a particular interest in curriculum changes.
• Anna Neumann, a higher education professor at Teachers College,Columbia University, studies the tenure system and working lives of education researchers.
• Mike Rose, a research professor in education methodologies at the University of California-Los Angeles Graduate School of Education, studies educational equity, changes in vocational education, and links between school and work success.
• Robert Rueda, an educational psychology professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, studies student motivation and its connection to literacy, as well as interventions to improve literacy for multilingual students.
• Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine, studies immigrant students and their transitions in the American school system. In particular, he looks at how multiple generations of immigrants adapt in the United States, and the role schools play in their integration.
• Robert B. Schwartz, the academic dean and professor of practice at the Harvard Graduate School for Education and the founding president of Achieve, Inc., the architect of modern common standards, studies students' trajectories through school to higher education and careers, particularly in the Pathways to Prosperity project.
• Lois Weis, an educational leadership and policy professor at the University of Buffalo in New York, studies race, class, and gender in American schools.
• Roger P. Weissberg, the chairman of social and emotional learning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, studies how interventions can improve students' social and emotional development and, in turn, increase their ability to learn and engage in school.
The academy moved its selection timeline from mid-April to early February, and new members will get their first chance to meet during a gathering at the April meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco.