National Advisory Board

A primary purpose of this National Advisory Board is to ensure that CIRTL is aware of and responsive to the teaching needs and concerns of the full array of institutions that hire STEM Ph.D.s. We include on our board representatives of community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges, and masters-level institutions, ensuring their input in the development of CIRTL tools and strategies.

Edward G. Clarke

Director of Grants and Special Projects
Madison Area Technical College

Edward Clarke identifies and develops innovative programs, partnerships and external funding opportunities.. He also develops new products and services, also helping MATC to implement them. Clarke serves in numerous professional and civic organizations including: the T.E.C. (Technology, Education, and Commerce) Incubator Center, Inc., Downtown Madison, Inc., the City of Madison Economic Development Commission, Thrive (regional economic development corporation), and the Worksforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin, Inc. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from Iona College; his master's and doctorate degrees in physics from Clarkson University; and his master's degree in education from the University of Ottowa, Canada.

Norman Fortenberry

Executive Director
American Society for Engineering Education

In March 2011, Dr. Norman L. Fortenberry was appointed Executive Director of ASEE. He is the founding Director of the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and, prior to joining NAE in October, 2002, he served as director of the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) within the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). His programmatic responsibilities included undergraduate education as well as broadening access and participation in science and engineering at all levels by underrepresented populations and institutions. Prior to returning the NSF as Division Director in November, 1996, Dr. Fortenberry served as Executive Director of the GEM Consortium, an NSF Program Director, and as a member of the mechanical engineering faculty at the Florida A&M University/Florida State University College of Engineering in Tallahassee, Florida. Dr. Fortenberry was awarded the S.B., S.M., and Sc.D. degrees (all in mechanical engineering) by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His specialization was Applied Mechanics and Design."

John R. Jungck

Mead Chair of the Sciences and Professor of Biology
Beloit College

Dr. Jungck has specialized in mathematical molecular evolution, history and philosophy of biology, and science education reform. In 1986, he co-founded the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium, a national consortium of college and university biology educators devoted to curricular reform across the nation. It promotes quantitative, open-ended problem solving, collaborative learning, peer review, research, and civic engagement/social responsibility. He is a Fulbright Scholar ( Thailand ), a Mina Shaughnessy Scholar, a Fellow of the National Institute of Science Education, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Michael T. Nettles

Senior Vice President, Policy Evaluation and Research Center
Educational Testing Service

Michael T. Nettles is Senior Vice President and is ETS’s Edmund W. Gordon Chair of the Policy Evaluation & Research Center. In that role he oversees and contributes to producing ETS’s public policy research. He is responsible for advancing the application of ETS research and information to address critical education policy challenges. Michael’s research and scholarship has been focused primarily upon opportunity, achievement and performance of students, teachers, faculty and educational institutions. His publications and memberships reflect his broad interest in public policy, student and faculty access, opportunity, achievement and educational assessment at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels. Michael is also heavily committed to public and professional service. Included among his present commitments are two National Research Council boards: the Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA) and the Board on Higher Education and the Workforce (BHEW). He also serves on the Board of the NSF sponsored Center on Research on Teaching and Learning (CRTL); the Joint Advisory Board for Education Research Centers in the state of Texas; the Board of the Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice (CERPP) at the University of Southern California; the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Inc. (NCIEA); Harvard University Medical School Advisory Committee on Diversity, and International Advisory Panel on Assessment (IAP) for the Human Science Research Council of the Republic of South Africa. Michael has also served on the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), where he chaired the Achievement Levels Committee, co-chaired the National Commission on NAEP 12th Grade Assessment and Reporting and later served as Vice Chair of the Board. Michael served two terms on the Board of Trustees of The College Board, where he chaired the Research and Development Committee. Michael also served two terms as a principal member of the Institute of Education Sciences’ (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education on the Education Policy, Finance, and Systems Research Scientific Review Panel. He was also a member of the National Council on Educational Standards and Testing. A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Michael earned his bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Tennessee, master’s degrees in political science and in higher education, and a Ph.D. in education, at Iowa State University.

R. Eugene Rice

Scholar in Residence, American Association for Higher Education
Washington, DC

R. Eugene Rice is Senior Scholar at the American Association of Higher Education in Washington, DC. He is working on a new field of inquiry, focusing on what we are learning about learning, and served as Director of the Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards. Before moving to AAHE, he was Vice President and Dean of the Faculty at Antioch College, and held an appointment as Professor of Sociology and Religion. Antioch is committed to being a “laboratory for democracy” and one of its primary missions is to enhance the civic and social responsibility of its students. Previous to his work at Antioch, Gene was Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation engaged in the national study of the scholarly priorities of the American professoriate and collaborating with the late Ernest Boyer on the Carnegie Report Scholarship Reconsidered. A major part of that work focuses on what is now being called “the scholarship of engagement” and is being extended through new initiatives at AAHE, such as the Ford-funded project entitled “The Engaged Campus in a Diverse Democracy: Student Learning and Faculty Work.” During the major part of his career, Gene was professor of Sociology and Religion at the University of the Pacific, where he helped initiate the first of the experimental “cluster colleges.” His teaching has always emphasized the active engagement of students in community—internships, coops, service-learning. His teaching and research focus on the sociology and ethics of the professions and the workplace, with an emphasis on the changing careers of faculty. He is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Karl A. Smith

Cooperative Learning Professor in Engineering Education
Purdue University

Morse-Alumni Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering
University of Minnesota

Karl A. Smith is Cooperative Learning Professor of Engineering Education, School of Engineering Education, at Purdue University West Lafayette. He has been at the University of Minnesota since 1972 and is in phased retirement as Morse-Alumni Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering. He has been actively involved in engineering education research and practice for over thirty years. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and past Chair of the Educational Research and Methods Division, and Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of Research on Engineering Education. His research and development interests include building rigorous research capabilities in engineering education; the role of cooperation in learning and design; problem formulation, modeling, and knowledge engineering; and project and knowledge management and leadership. Karl has worked with thousands of faculty all over the world on pedagogies of engagement, especially cooperative learning, problem-based learning, and constructive controversy. He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Metallurgical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and aPh.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Karl has co-written eight books including Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom, 3rd Ed., Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity; Strategies for energizing large classes: From small groups to learning communities; How to model it: Problem solving for the computer age; Strategies for energizing large classes: From small groups to learning communities and Teamwork and project management, 3rd Ed.

James H. Stith

Vice President Emeritus,  American Institute of Physics
College Park, MD

James H. Stith was the Vice President, Physics Resources Center for the American Institute of Physics from 1998-2008, with oversight responsibilities for AIP's Magazine Division, the Media and Government Relations Division, the Education Division, the Center for the History of Physics, the Statistical Research Division and the Careers Division. His Doctorate in physics was earned from The Pennsylvania State University, and his Masters and Bachelors in physics were received from Virginia State University. A physics education researcher, his primary interests are in Program Evaluation, and Teacher Preparation and Enhancement. He was formerly a Professor of Physics at The Ohio State University and spent 21 years on the faculty of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has also been a Visiting Associate Professor at the United Air Force Academy, a Visiting Scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Visiting Scientist at the University of Washington, and an Associate Engineer at the Radio Cooperation of America. He is a past president of the American Association of Physics Teachers, past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Chartered Fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists, and a member of the Ohio Academy of Science. Additionally, he serves on a number of national and international Advisory Boards and has been awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by his alma mater, Virginia State University.

Donald O. Straney

Chancellor
University of Hawai'i at Hilo

Donald O. Straney was Dean of the College of Science and Professor of Biology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona prior to becoming Chancellor at UH Hilo. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Desert Studies Center and the Ocean Studies Institute of the California State University System.  He is on the steering committee of the Knight Collaborative, a national consortium of colleges and universities that provides executive education programs, best practice consultation and information sharing for college and university leaders. Dr. Straney had joined Cal Poly Pomona in August, 2002 after spending 23 years at Michigan State University as a faculty member of the Department of Zoology, which he chaired from 1986-95. As Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Development from 1995-2002, he oversaw programs on teaching improvement and leadership. He was a 1994-95 ACE Fellow. He has served on several review panels of the National Science Foundation, (which has also been the major source of funding for his research). An evolutionary biologist by training, Dr. Straney has studied patterns of change in a variety of organisms, most recently focusing on ants. He received a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley and both his M.S. and B.S. are from Michigan State University in Zoology.

Orlando Taylor

President, Washington, D.C. Campus
The Chicago School

Prior to becoming the President of The Chicago School's Washington, D.C. Campus, Orlando Taylor was  Dean of the Howard University Graduate School and Vice Provost of Research. In addition to serving as Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Dean, Taylor also held a faculty position at Howard as Professor in the School of Communications. Dr. Taylor was also previously President of The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA). He is a member of the Board of the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob Javits Fellowship Program. Prior to his appointment as Dean, he served in several posts at Howard, including as Executive Assistant to the President, Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the School of Communications, and Chair of the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences. Before coming to Howard in 1973, Taylor was a member of the faculty of Indiana University. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at Stanford University. Taylor is a former President of the National Communication Association, a member of COSSA, and Immediate Past President of the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools. He is a former member of the Advisory Committee of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has served on an advisory council at the National Institutes of Health. Dean Taylor is currently principal investigator on grants from NSF, the Lilly Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Much of his work focuses on increasing the number of minority Ph.D. recipients. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

George Walker

William B. Wood

Distinguished Professor
Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
University of Colorado-Boulder

Earning his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Stanford University, Palo in 1963, Dr. Wood’s research interests include genetic control and molecular biology of axis formation, pattern formation, and sex determination in development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Honors include: U.S. Steel Award in Molecular Biology (1969) election to membership of the National Academy of Sciences (1972), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1975-1976), membership in thee American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1976), Harvey Society Lectureship (1978), the National Institutes of Health, MERIT Award (1986-1995)< Fellow, American Association for the advancement of Science (1989), and Fellow American Academy of Microbiology (1992). From 1970 to 1972, Dr. Wood served on the National Science Foundation’s Panel for Developmental Biology. He was also on the National Institutes of Health, Physiological Chemistry Study Section from 1974-1978, the American Society Biological Chemists, Educational Affairs Committee from 1975-1978, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Public Policy from 1978-1979, the National Institutes of Health, Genetics Special Study Section during 1980., a Developmental Biology Gordon Conference, co-organizer in 1983, Harvard University’s Overseer's Committee to Visit the Division of Medical Sciences from 1984-1988, the National Institutes of Health, Cellular & Molecular Basis of Disease Review Committee from 1984-1988, Associate Editor for Cell from 1984-1986, Board of Reviewing Editors for Science from 1985-1992, on the Visiting Committee to the Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology since 1986, on the Visiting Committee to the Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution of Washington since 1986, on the Editorial Board of Developmental Biology since 1995 and a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Developmental Toxicology from 1997 to 1998.

Former National Advisory Board Members

Dr. Peter Ewell

Vice President
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
Boulder, CO

Peter Ewell is the Vice President of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). A member of the staff since 1981, Dr. Ewell’s work focuses on assessing institutional and higher education system effectiveness and the outcomes of college, and involves both research and direct consulting with institutions and state systems on collecting and using assessment information in planning, evaluation, and budgeting.

Dr. Ewell has authored six books and numerous articles on improving undergraduate instruction through the assessment of student outcomes. His publications include The Self-Regarding Institution: Information for Excellence and Assessing Educational Outcomes. In addition, he has prepared commissioned papers for agencies such as the Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education (authors of the report Involvement in Learning), the Education Commission of the States, the National Governors’ Association, the National Conference of State Legislators, and the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. In 1998 Dr. Ewell led the design team for the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Prior to joining the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, Dr. Ewell was Coordinator for Long-Range Planning at Governors State University. A graduate of Haverford College, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University in 1976 and was on the faculty of the University of Chicago. In addition to consulting in higher education, Dr. Ewell has been involved in program evaluation, organizational development and strategic planning for a variety of non-profit and arts organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts and six state arts agencies. In 1981 he received the National Theater Association award for Theory and Criticism.

Dr. Richard McCray

George Gamow Distinguished Professor, Emeritus
Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
University of Colorado-Boulder

Richard McCray received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from UCLA in 1967. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech (1967-68) and an Assistant Professor at the Harvard College Observatory (1968-71). In 1971, he moved to the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has held visiting positions at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1983), Beijing University and Nanjing University (1987), the Space Telescope Science Institute (1988), Columbia University (1990), and the University of California at Berkeley (1997). In 1983, Prof. McCray was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and in 1990 he received the Dannie S. Heinemann Prize for Astrophysics of the American Physical Society. In 1989, he was elected to National Academy of Sciences. In 1996, he was appointed Concurrent Professor of Astronomy at Nanjing University. In 2002, he was awarded the NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. Professor McCray's research is in the theory of the dynamics of the interstellar gas, theory of cosmic X-ray sources, and, most recently, the theory of Supernova 1987A. Notable contributions include: the theory of the "interstellar bubbles"; the theory of "superbubbles"; theoretical models showing how X-rays from neutron stars and black holes are converted to observed ultraviolet and optical emission spectra; and the interpretation of the evolution of the spectrum of Supernova 1987A.

Prof. McCray has been actively involved in promoting improvement of undergraduate science learning. He led a multi-departmental effort that introduced more collaborative learning in introductory science classes by employing undergraduates as learning assistants.  Prof. McCray also developed information technology resources for undergraduate science learning.

Dr. Elaine Seymour

Former Director
Ethnography and Evaluation Research
University of Colorado-Boulder

Elaine Seymour was co-founder and, for seventeen years, director of Ethnography & Evaluation Research (E&ER). Her research and evaluation work has focused on issues of change in STEM education and careers, including evaluation of initiatives seeking to improve quality, access, and diversity in these fields. Her best-known work, co-authored with Nancy M. Hewitt, Talking about Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences, (1997), is widely cited for its contribution to the nationwide effort to improve undergraduate education in the sciences.

In response to the learning assessment needs of classroom innovators, Seymour designed two online resources: the Field-Tested Learning Assessment Guide (FLAG), http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/flag/default.asp, and the widely-used Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) online instrument www.salgsite.org. She has led E&ER’s comparative, longitudinal inquiry into the nature, benefits, and costs of summer research experiences for both students and faculty, and the processes whereby gains are achieved (Seymour et al., 2004; Hunter et al., 2007).

With E&ER colleagues, Seymour published Partners in Innovation: Teaching Assistants in College Science Courses (2005) and Undergraduate Research in the Sciences: Engaging Students in Real Science (2010). In “retirement” she helped to organize a national endeavor, “Mobilizing STEM Education for a Sustainable Future.”

Seymour has written widely and testified before Congress on trends and needs in the reform of STEM education. Her work has pioneered and established the value of qualitative inquiry in understanding complex issues in this field. In recognition of her work on women in science, Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network awarded her their 2002 Betty Vetter Award for Research. She is a sociologist and a British-American whose education and career have been conducted on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dr. Marilla Svinicki

Professor of Educational Psychology
The University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Marilla Svinicki currently holds the position of Full Professor in Educational Psychology. She is the Chair of the Human Development, Culture, & Learning Sciences area in the Educational Psychology Department. Prior to that she served as the University of Texas Faculty Development Director and Director of the Center for Teaching Effectiveness. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Colorado in Experimental Psychology in 1972 and taught at Macalester College before coming to Texas and joining a research team on computer-based learning, a grant from the National Science Foundation in which she both supported faculty instructional design and evaluated project effectiveness. She has served on the boards of several projects in higher education and was twice the President of the POD Network, an international organization for professionals in faculty development.

Her expertise is in the design of teaching and learning and the application of educational psychology principles to both of those areas. Her research has been on technology in education, preparation of graduate students as teachers, community in the postsecondary classroom, and faculty concerns and development in postsecondary education. She has published primarily in the areas of faculty and graduate student development and teaching expertise, including serving as the Editor in Chief of the series, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, which specializes in understanding the educational process at the postsecondary level, and writing a monthly column on teaching for the National Teaching/Learning Forum.