Susan Fuhrman, the president of Teachers College, Columbia University, and an expert on education policy research and international studies, took over this month as president of the National Academy of Education. She succeeds Lorrie A. Shepard, the dean of the education school at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who had been head of the Washington-based group for the past four years.
The invitation-only organization has 174 members and 17 foreign associates selected on the basis of their scholarly contributions to the field. Besides being an honorary society, the academy has the job of advancing high-quality research. Over the past year, the group has been producing a series of six white papers intended to provide advice for federal policymakers on what research has to say on key education issues.
