Our Team: Advisors

They bring a wealth of expertise in cognitive science, user experience, data science, and open education, and work closely with AI for education researchers from Professor Richard Baraniuk’s lab at Rice University (founder of OpenStax and Principal Investigator for SafeInsights). Mallicks’ work, at the intersection of learning science, education, and edtech, focuses on innovation in education R&D and bridging the gap between research and practice to enhance teaching and learning.

He is currently a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2030 Scientific Committee and an advisor to the Alliance for the Future of Digital Learning, sponsored by the Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiative (MBRGI). His co-edited books include: Scaling Up Success: Lessons Learned from Technology-based Educational Improvement; Digital Teaching Platforms: Customizing Classroom Learning for Each Student; Teacher Learning in the Digital Age: Online Professional Development in STEM Education; Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities in Education; Learning engineering for online education: Theoretical contexts and design-based examples; and The 60-Year Curriculum: New Models for Lifelong Learning in the Digital Economy.

Across her career in higher education – at Blackboard, APLU, EVERFI, EDUCAUSE, Faculty Guild, and as an independent consultant – Meaghan has worked in partnership with colleges and universities to improve education quality and access through digital learning.

She is owner and principal at Mercy Education Partners, a consulting firm serving higher education institutions, non-profit organizations and associations, and growth companies. Meaghan studied history at the University of Virginia and Trinity College Dublin and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the College of William & Mary. She has taught online for the University of Massachusetts-Boston since 2003.

Prior to becoming associate vice provost, he served VSU as chair of the Biology Department (2009-13), director of the Office of Sponsored Research (2012-15), and assistant vice president for research (2016-2020).

Faison earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Hampton University (1994) and PhD in neurosciences from the University of Virginia (2002). He received his post-doctoral training at Virginia Commonwealth University, before joining the faculty of VSU’s Biology Department in 2004. Faison has published and presented in the fields of developmental neuroscience, cognition, and student academic performance and has received grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. Faison currently sits on the boards of the Virginia Farmer’s Market Association, where he serves as vice-president, and Friends of the Lower Appomattox River.

She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in learning theory, motivation, research methods, statistics, health psychology and other topics at Mason, James Madison University in the School of Psychology and Florida State University in the Department of Educational Research.

Kitsantas is the recipient of a George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award and the 2019 Barry J. Zimmerman Award for Outstanding Contributions to the fields of studying and self-regulated learning research by the Studying and Self-Regulated Learning Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. She is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division 15: Educational Psychology. Presently, she is serving as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Education. She received her PhD in educational psychology with a specialization in development, learning, and instruction from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.

In her senior leadership position at AAC&U, she oversaw both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices (HIPs), student success, and campus climate, and directed AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on HIPs and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers. She is the co-author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition). McNair is the editor of Strengthening Campus Communities Through the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Framework published by Routledge in June 2024. In May 2023, McNair received an honorary degree from Franklin Pierce University for her national work to dismantle a false belief in a hierarchy of human value and for her efforts to advance racial equity to support the success of all students. NASPA, the association of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, named McNair the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award.

In this work, she seeks to illuminate what good teaching means and how it unfolds, how professors learn to teach, and professional development practices and programs for supporting teaching improvement. Neumann’s research also examines professors’ intellectual careers, doctoral students’ learning of research, and academic organization and leadership. Her books include Convergent Teaching: Tools to Spark Deeper Learning in College (with Aaron M. Pallas, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), a reconceptualization of undergraduate teaching with implications for improvement.

A fellow of the American Education Research Association and an elected member of the National Academy of Education, she also is the recipient of her field’s top two research awards: the Research Achievement Award of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the Exemplary Research Award of the American Educational Research Association, Division J (Higher and Postsecondary Education). Neumann is past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. For over a decade she directed the Program in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College where she also served as department chair. Neumann earned a BA from the University of Texas, Austin, an MA from the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley (formerly Pan American University), and a PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dr. Powell is the CCP Co- Principal Investigator for the Greater Philadelphia Region Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Grant, funded by the National Science Foundation. She has worked on this initiative for 28 years. CCP works with eight tri-state Colleges and Universities to increase the number of African American, Latino and Native –American students receiving baccalaureate degrees in the areas of Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics [STEM].

Dr. Powell is Chair of the Board of Directors for Greater Philadelphia Health Action Inc., a group of federally qualified health centers serving 80,000 patients in the City of Philadelphia. She has served on this board for over 18 years.

She was named one of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education’s Leading Women in 2018, the American Association for Women in Community College’s Woman of the Year in 2017, and one of Washington Monthly’s 16 most innovative higher education leaders in 2016, among other recognitions.

Stout currently serves as chair of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research Advisory Board at North Carolina State University, as co-chair of the University of Maryland Global Campus Doctorate of Management in Community College Policy and Administration Advisory Board, and as a member of the Common App Board of Directors, the College Promise National Advisory Board, HERS Board of Directors, and the NJCAA Foundation Board of Directors. She also represents Achieving the Dream on the Washington Higher Education Secretariat, participates as a mentor and frequent presenter for the Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship and Aspen New Presidents Fellowship, and has been a presenter for the League for Innovation Executive Leadership Institute.

Prior to serving as president and CEO at ATD, Stout was president of Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) from 2001 to 2015. She has also held leadership positions at Camden County College and Harford Community College. Stout holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Delaware, a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore, and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Delaware and honorary degrees from Miami Dade College and Montgomery County Community College.