Dear USC Rossier Faculty, Staff and Students,
I’m pleased to announce that Dr. Gale M. Sinatra will be installed this fall as the Stephen H. Crocker Professor of Education.
A professorship is one of the most coveted honors that can be bestowed upon an individual in the academic community. It is awarded to a scholar who demonstrates the highest level of excellence in leadership and research in his or her area of study.
Dr. Sinatra will be the fourth holder of this endowed professorship, following Drs. Joanna Lemlech, Myron Dembo and Robert Rueda. The professorship was established through an endowment from Stephen H. Crocker, who also created a separate professorship at the USC Thornton School of Music.
Dr. Sinatra has been a professor of psychology and education at USC Rossier since 2012. Like her predecessors in this position, she is one of the top researchers in her field while also serving as an outstanding teacher and adviser. In the spring of 2017, she was one of 22 university faculty members to receive a USC Mentoring Award.
She is an internationally recognized expert on STEM learning and motivation. In particularly she has been a leader in research on climate science education, evolution education, conceptual change learning and the public understanding of science.
Dr. Sinatra has also been a prominent leader in her field through a number of organizations. In August, she will become president of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) educational psychology organization, Division 15, a role that also includes oversight of the prominent journal Educational Psychologist, which she edited from 2005 to 2010. She currently serves as an associate editor of the APA journal Psychological Bulletin, one of the top ranked journals in psychology.
As the Crocker Professor, she will continue on the path that she has already forged at USC Rossier, fostering the next generation of scholars while enhancing the impact of educational psychology on education and public policy.
Dr. Sinatra has edited two books, written dozens of book chapters, co-authored more than 60 scholarly papers and delivered nearly 200 conference presentations in education psychology. She is currently writing a book based on her 2016 article, “Public Understanding of Science: Policy and Educational Implications,” published in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain. The book will explore the psychology of science resistance, doubt and denial.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Sinatra for this important distinction.
Sincerely,
Karen Symms Gallagher, Ph.D.
Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean
USC Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0031
Asst: hardison@usc.edu
213.740.5756 (office)
213.821.2158 (fax)