Director, Center for Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh, School of Education
In January 2009, Louis Gomez was named as the inaugural holder of the Dr. Helen S. Faison Chair in Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh and the first director of the university's Center for Urban Education. In addition, Dr. Gomez will also serve as a senior scientist at the university's Learning Research and Development Center.
He is a nationally recognized scholar dedicated to transforming instruction in urban schools. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburg, he was Aon Professor of Learning Sciences and a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. He was a co-director of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS)—a collaboration among Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and the Detroit and Chicago public schools to research and develop ways to employ new computing and networking technologies to support science learning in urban schools.
Along with several colleagues, he was a founding member of the MacArthur Network on Teaching and Learning, which sought to explore the relationship between research and practice in education. Dr. Gomez recently completed two terms as a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He has also served as a member of the advisory board of the National Research Council's Center for Education and as chair of the Educational Testing Service's Visiting Panel of Research. He is a recipient of the Spencer Foundation Mentorship Award.
Before joining Northwestern, Professor Gomez was director of Human-Computer Systems Research at Bellcore in Morristown, N.J. He is the author of numerous publications on 21st Century literacy, the role of technology in pre-service teacher preparation, supporting reading and writing in science, and urban education reform. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley (1979), and a B.A. in Psychology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook (1974). He joined CAST’s Board of Directors in 2003.
