From: The Provost
Purpose: to inform and celebrate
Clarkson University’s Institute for STEM Education has facilitated engagement of university faculty and students in K-12 outreach, teacher training and professional development, informal STEM education, university STEM faculty training, and pedagogical innovation. Under the leadership of founding director Peter Turner, the institute’s work has advanced the quality of STEM education offered to university and K-12 students alike, developing innovative curricula and pedagogies and winning external funding for these efforts. Now is the time to celebrate successes and take the next steps to deepen and broaden the impact of the institute here at Clarkson and across the region.
I am pleased to announce that Kathleen Kavanagh, Professor of Mathematics and Robert A. Plane Endowed Chair, has been appointed Director of the Institute for STEM Education at Clarkson University. In this role, Dr. Kavanagh will extend the institute’s impact on faculty development in teaching, advance current and new STEM outreach and teacher education programs, coordinate and advance sharing of best practices and effective STEM pedagogy, and accelerate programming that engages diverse student populations in STEM learning.
A world-class mathematician, innovator, and teacher who has devoted her career to impactful interdisciplinary scholarship, Professor Kavanagh is exceptionally equipped for this important leadership role and I am delighted she has agreed to serve. Throughout her career, Professor Kavanagh has committed herself to removing barriers to collaboration, within and external to the academy, in a manner that pushes us to exceed our expectations.
The Associate Director of the Institute for STEM Education since 2017, Professor Kavanagh is a prolific researcher, authoring dozens of internationally cited publications and service as principal investigator of numerous grants. Professor Kavanagh is the current Vice President for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), an international, professional organization with over 14,000 members. She is winner of the Mathematics Association of America’s Henry Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching and currently serves as the principal investigator of Clarkson’s Integrated Math and Physics for Entry to Undergraduate STEM (IMPETUS) project funded by the state of New York. A graduate of SUNY-Plattsburgh, Professor Kavanagh earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at North Caroline State University and performed her post-doctoral work at North Carolina State University and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before arriving at Clarkson University as a new faculty member. Professor Kavanagh has supervised more than a dozen masters and doctoral theses and over 40 undergraduate research projects.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Kavanagh on her appointment to this role. Through her leadership and excellent work, I am confident Clarkson’s Institute for STEM Education will continue to flourish, enhancing the education we offer our students, enriching K-12 STEM teaching and learning, and advancing Clarkson University’s reputation as an internationally respected innovator in STEM education.
