Colloquium Series

P. David Pearson is the Evelyn Lois Corey Professor Emeritus in instructional science within the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley, where he served as dean from 2001–10 and professor from 2001–17. Founding editor of the Handbook of Reading Research, he has written over 300 publications (with over 250 colleagues and students) for teachers, researchers and policymakers across 50 years.

With degrees from UC Berkeley (BA in history) and Minnesota (PhD in education), his research has explored reading instruction and assessment practices, with special attention to disciplinary literacy and comprehension instruction. His agenda in retirement focuses on historical and policy-oriented essays about reading processes and pedagogy—most recent is the book, Fact-checking the Science of Reading, coauthored with Rob Tierney.

Pearson has received many awards for his nearly 50 years of research and service to reading research, most notably the William S. Gray Citation of Merit by the International Reading Association; the Oscar Causey Award from the Literacy Research Association; and the Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award from the American Educational Research Association. His doctoral alma mater, the University of Minnesota, presented him with the Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2006. He was elected to membership in the Reading Hall of Fame (1990), the National Academy of Education (2003) and the AERA Fellows Program (2009). In 2010 he received the AERA Award for Distinguished Research in Education, and the the Literacy Research Association established the P. David Pearson Scholarly Influence Award to honor research that impacts practice and policy.

Fenice B. Boyd is chair and professor in the Department of Teacher Education in the College of Education at the University of South Carolina. She earned her doctorate at Michigan State University (MSU) in curriculum, teaching and educational policy with a literacy focus. She began her career as a middle school teacher. Her research centers on topics of diversity writ large—diversity as related to students’ ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, academic abilities, instructional approaches and curriculum materials.

Recently, she was the principal investigator for a research project titled “Enacting and Researching Culturally Sustaining STEM Pedagogies Across Informal Settings in Gullah/Geechee Communities in the Southeastern United States” funded by the National Science Foundation. The project is designed to recognize, acknowledge and foreground the scientific contributions of descendants of West Africans because these contributions have been vital to many scientific enterprises but largely underappreciated and unrecognized in educational programs. This research is designed to address these issues.