Bob Wise

Coordinator of the Global Science of Learning Education Network (GSoLEN)

Bob Wise, Former West Virginia Gov., has spent his career advancing education opportunities for our nation’s students. He recently completed 14 years as president of the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed), a Washington, DC–based national nonprofit that has become a national leader in advocating the policies and practices necessary for secondary school students to be ready for postsecondary education and careers.

Currently coordinating the development of the Global Science of Learning Education Network (GSoLEN), Gov. Wise’s accomplishments include leading the development of Future Ready Schools®, a network of 3400 school districts committed to the effective use of digital learning to assist teachers and improve student learning outcomes. He recently launched a science of adolescent learning initiative to guide education policy and practice decisions. He works closely with school district, state, and national leaders for evidence-based systems-change that advances 21^st century learning that meets each student’s needs.

After serving twenty-four years as governor, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and state legislator, Gov. Wise has become a prominent speaker and advisor on education issues and trends. He has advised the U.S. Department of Education, White House, and key state and federal policymakers. As governor and U.S. congressman, he focused on  improving financial aid for college and early childhood development.

Heidi Schweingruber

Director of the Board on Science Education at the National Research Council (NRC)

Heidi Schweingruber, Ph.D., is the director of the Board on Science Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM). In that role, she oversees a portfolio of work that includes K-12 science education, informal science education and higher education. Dr. Schweingruber joined the staff of the board in 2004 starting as a senior program officer. In this role, she directed or co-directed several projects including the study that resulted in the report A Framework for K-12 Science Education (2011) which served as the blueprint for the Next Generation Science Standards. She also directed a review of NASA’s pre-college education programs completed in 2008 and co-directed the study that produced the 2007 report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. Dr. Schweingruber is a nationally recognized leader in leveraging research findings to catalyze improvements in science and STEM education policy and practice. She presents widely on the work of the board. Prior to joining NASEM Schweingruber worked as a senior research associate at the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education. She was also the director of research for the Rice University School Mathematics Project an outreach program in K-12 mathematics education, and taught in the psychology and education departments at Rice University. Dr. Schweingruber holds a Ph.D. in psychology (developmental) and anthropology, and a certificate in culture and cognition from the University of Michigan.

Barbara Means

Founder of the Center for Technology in Learning, SRI International

Dr. Barbara Means, Executive Director of Learning Sciences Research at Digital Promise, studies the effectiveness of innovative education approaches supported by digital technology. Prior to joining Digital Promise in 2017 she was at SRI International where she founded SRI’s Center for Technology in Learning in 1994. Currently, she is currently studying the equity impacts of the shift to remote instruction caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. Her other ongoing work includes supporting colleges and universities in implementing continuous improvement research on their efforts to incorporate learning technology in ways that enhance teaching and learning in high-enrollment gateway courses. Dr. Means has advised the U.S. Department of Education on national educational technology plans and has authored or edited more than a half dozen books related to learning and technology. She has served on many study panels related to science education for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, including the panels that produced How People Learn I and How People Learn II. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ken Koedinger

Professor, Human Computer Interactions, Carnegie Mellon University

Kenneth R. Koedinger is a professor of Human Computer Interaction and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Koedinger has an M.S. in Computer Science, a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology, and experience teaching in an urban high school. His multidisciplinary background supports his research goals of understanding human learning and creating educational technologies that increase student achievement.

His research has contributed new principles and techniques for the design of educational software and has produced basic cognitive science research results on the nature of student thinking and learning. Koedinger directs LearnLab, which started with 10 years of National Science Foundation funding and is now the scientific arm of CMU’s Simon Initiative. LearnLab builds on the past success of Cognitive Tutors, an approach to online personalized tutoring that is in use in thousands of schools and has been repeatedly demonstrated to increase student achievement, for example, doubling what algebra students learn in a school year. He was a co-founder of Carnegie Learning, Inc. that has brought Cognitive Tutor based courses to millions of students since it was formed in 1998, and leads LearnLab (see learnlab.org), now the scientific arm of CMU’s Simon Initiative. Dr. Koedinger has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications and has been a project investigator on over 45 grants. In 2017, he received the Hillman Professorship of Computer Science and in 2018, he was recognized as a fellow of Cognitive Science.

Nancy Law

Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong; Founding Director for the Centre for Information Technology in Education

Dr Nancy Law is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. She served as the Founding Director for the Centre for Information Technology in Education (CITE) for 15 years from 1998. She also led the Science of Learning Strategic Research Theme at the University of Hong Kong. She is a Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences and is known globally for her strong record and expertise in the integration of digital technology in learning and teaching to promote student-centred pedagogical innovations. Professor Law received a Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme Award by the HKSAR Research Grants Council in 2014 in recognition of her research in scalability of technology-enhanced learning innovations. She is currently spearheading large projects in two related areas: implementation and refinement of multilevel network models of innovation as sociotechnical co-evolution, and investigation of students’ development as digital citizens from childhood to early adulthood. She has served on a number of policy advisory boards/working groups related to ICT in education for the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong SAR government and other community, government groups and institutions. She has also been contributing as expert consultant to the European Commission, UNESCO and OECD on various aspects of technology-enhanced learning.