Faculty

An interdisciplinary group of outstanding and highly productive faculty will operate this training program. Each faculty member brings essential substantive and/or methodological expertise to the program. In the last five years, these faculty members have supervised a number of exciting Federally funded research projects in mathematics education.

The director of the training program will be Mitchell Nathan, professor of Educational Psychology (with affiliate appointments in Curriculum and Instruction and in Psychology). Nathan is chair of the Learning Sciences Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Nathan’s research is rooted in cognitive, embodied, and social aspects of mathematical learning and teaching behavior in and out of classrooms. He examines the development of algebraic reasoning, mathematical explanations, and uses of abstract and concrete representations for mathematical thinking using quantitative and qualitative research methods, such as experimental design, survey design, think-aloud reports, design-based research, video analysis, and verbal and gesture-based analyses of learner and teacher discourse. His work is directed at both basic research on intellectual performance, learning, instruction, and at applications of that work to curriculum development, teacher education, and staff development. Over the past 15 years, he has secured nearly $12M in external research funding on learning, mathematical thinking, and teaching. His research is currently supported by grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (CASL) and the National Science Foundation (REESE and EEC).

Five other core faculty make up the fellowship program senior personnel.

Eric Knuth is professor of mathematics education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Knuth focuses his research on the meaningful engagement of students in mathematical practices and the design of curriculum and instruction that fosters the development of increasingly sophisticated ways of engaging in these practices. In his focus on mathematical practices, he includes such practices as justifying and proving mathematical claims and using algebraic representations appropriately, flexibly, and efficiently to model and solve problems. He has been and is currently a PI or co-PI on several multi-year, federally funded grants, and his work has been published in leading education research journals, including Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, Cognition and Instruction, and Journal of Mathematical Behavior, among others. He was the recipient of an NSF Early Career award and was recently appointed to the Research Committee of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Amy Ellis is assistant professor of mathematics education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Ellis studies students’ reasoning, particularly as it relates to mathematical generalization, justification, and proof; and to the development of algebraic thinking. Her current research is supported by three NSF-funded projects that focus on (a) examining the ways in which classroom environments influence students' mathematical generalizations, (b) studying students' inductive and deductive reasoning about problems in mathematics and the natural world, and (c) analyzing state assessment data to study girls’ and boys’ performance on mathematics items. Ellis was recently awarded the AERA Early Career Publication award in mathematics education for her work on the connections between generalization and justification in algebra.

David Kaplan is professor of quantitative methods in the Department of Educational Psychology (with affiliate appointments in Population Health Sciences and the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies). His current research focuses on the development and application of Bayesian latent variable models. He also works on the problem of causal inference in non-experimental settings. Kaplan has been a consultant on numerous projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), where he is currently a member of the Questionnaire Expert Group for OECD/PISA. He has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Milano–Bicocca. Dr. Kaplan was recently named a Vilas Associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was previously the Jeanne Griffith Fellow at the National Center for Education Statistics.

Martha W. Alibali is professor of Psychology (with an affiliate appointment in Educational Psychology). Alibali’s research addresses three major themes: (a) mechanisms of knowledge change in the development of mathematical reasoning, (b) the role of visual scaffolding (including gestures, diagrams, and other inscriptions) in instructional communication, and (c) the role of gesture in perceptual and spatial thinking. Her work is currently supported by the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Science Foundation. Alibali received the Robert L. Fantz Memorial Award from the American Psychological Foundation, which honors a young investigator in the area of cognitive development. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a governing board member of the Cognitive Development Society.

Charles Kalish is professor of Educational Psychology (with affiliate appointments in Psychology and at the Waisman Center). Kalish studies inductive inference and categorization. Most of his research focuses on preschool and early school-aged children. Current research projects concern the development of conditional probability judgments, inductive reasoning in the domain of mathematics, and the role of norms in early social cognition. His work is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DLS, DRM, and REESE). Kalish has held a NEA/Spencer postdoctoral fellowship and was a visiting professor at New York University and at the University of California–Berkeley. He is currently chair of the Department of Educational Psychology and coordinator of the UW–Madison Cognitive Science Cluster.