Faculty Promotions

Three faculty members have been promoted in the School of Education.

Richard Correnti has been promoted to the position of associate professor in the Learning Sciences and Policy Department. Correnti has worked as an assistant professor and research scientist in the Learning Research and Development Center and School of Education for the past seven years. Through his research, Correnti has attempted to inform policy debates regarding approaches to improving teaching, with targeting the needs of the student being of primary importance. This research includes collaborations with the Institute for Learning for assessing leaders’ abilities to attend to substantive aspects of instruction when observing classrooms.

Correnti also developed Leaders Improving Support for Teaching, a research tool that helps to improve leadership capacity in observing and evaluating teaching. In addition, he serves as principal investigator for the William T. Grant and Spencer foundations’ study of teaching through multiple measurements in addition to conducting research on the Pittsburgh Public Schools for the advocacy group A+ Schools, through which he helps to develop insight about the formation of local education policy.

Kevin Crowley has been promoted to the position of full professor in the Learning Sciences and Policy Center. Crowley joined the School of Education as a pioneer in the now popular field of informal learning—designated as out-of-school settings—which accounted for a sparse amount of researchers and funding as little as 15 years ago. Crowley’s research interests include the role of informal learning settings in facilitating children’s early engagement with science, art, and technology; museums as learning environments; and the ways to design connected systems of experiences that support lifelong learning in science, technology, and the arts.

Crowley splits his time between the School of Education and the Learning Research and Development Center, where he is director of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE). Crowley has long-standing research and design partnerships with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History; is currently a William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished fellow; and, in the fall of 2013, will be a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. He lives in Indiana Township with his wife, Karen Knutson (associate director of UPCLOSE); their children, Colin and Sarah; one cat; two goats; four chickens; and a lot of honeybees.

Suzanne Lane has been appointed chair of the Department of Psychology in Education. After receiving her doctorate from the University of Arizona, Lane joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant professor in the research methodology program. Lane has been with the School of Education for 27 years. Her research focus is on technical and validity issues related to large-scale assessments. Her professional involvement includes serving on the editorial boards of the Journal of Educational Measurement, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, Applied Measurement in Education, Educational Researcher, the American Educational Research Journal, and Educational Assessment. Her tenure also has featured a variety of professional appointments and awards, including serving as vice president of Division D (Measurement and Research Methodology) of the American Educational Research Association, being elected president of the National Council on Measurement in Education in 2004, and being appointed to the National Technical Advisory Councils on K–12 Assessment and Accountability Systems.

In 2011 and 2012, Lane received the University of Pittsburgh School of Education Award for Research and Scholarship. Lane is married with one daughter, who will be attending a small private college in North Carolina this fall. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, reading, and running.