Innovation in education
An engaging education equips students for lifelong learning. Pearson authors, instructors, and students discuss innovative themes in teaching and learning.
Pearson
Innovation in education
Pearson authors
Our innovative authors embrace technology to create learning content that evolves with instructors and students.
Click an author below to learn more about them and check out other videos about their titles and writing process.
Tony Gaddis
Tony Gaddis is the principal author of the Starting Out With series of textbooks. Tony has nearly two decades of experience teaching computer science courses, primarily at Haywood Community College. He is a highly acclaimed instructor who was previously selected as the North Carolina Community College "Teacher of the Year," and has received the Teaching Excellence award from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development. The Starting Out With series includes introductory books covering C++, Java™, Microsoft® Visual Basic®, Microsoft® C#®, Python®, Programming Logic and Design, Alice, and App Inventor, all published by Pearson.
Eric Gaze
Bowdoin College
Eric Gaze directs the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) program at Bowdoin College, is Chair of the Center for Learning and Teaching, and is a Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics Department. He is the current President of the National Numeracy Network (NNN 2013 – 2017). Eric has a QR textbook published with Pearson, Thinking Quantitatively: Communicating with Numbers, with blog: https://thinkingquantitatively.wordpress.com/.
Eric has given talks and led faculty workshops on the topics of QR Across the Curriculum, QR Assessment, and has served on review teams of QR programs. Eric was the Principal Investigator for a NSF TUES Type I grant (2012-14), Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning Assessment (QLRA) DUE 1140562, and has published articles on teaching and learning related to citizen literacy. Prior to coming to Bowdoin, Eric led the development of a Masters in Numeracy program for K-12 teachers at Alfred University as an Associate Professor of Mathematics and Education.
David Goldfield
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
David Goldfield is the Robert Lee Bailey professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. A native of Memphis, he grew up in Brooklyn and attended the University of Maryland. He is the author or editor of sixteen books, including: Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers (1982) and Black, White, and Southern (1991), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in history. His most recently published books are: America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation (2011), Still Fighting the Civil War (2013), and The Gifted Generation: When Government Was Good (2017). Goldfield is also the lead author of the US history textbook, The American Journey. He serves as editor of the Journal of Urban History, and as Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. David works as an academic specialist for the US State Department, and as an expert witness in voting rights and capital punishment cases. He is past president of the Southern Historical Association (2012-2013). He serves on the Advisory Board of the human rights organization, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and on the Board of the North Carolina Civil War and Reconstruction History Center.
Ed Greenberg
Edward S. Greenberg is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Research Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ed’s research and teaching interests include American government and politics, domestic and global political economy, and democratic theory and practice, with a special emphasis on workplace issues. He has taught the large introductory course in American politics and government for many years as well as upper division and honors courses and graduate seminars. He has received several awards and honors for his teaching both at Stanford and the University of Colorado.
His research on workplaces, workers, and the companies they work at, has been funded over the years by the NSF and NIH with awards totaling over $3 million. This research has been reported in a book, Workplace Democracy: the Political Effects of Participation (Cornell University Press, 1986), winner of the Sidney Hillman Prize for labor studies, as well as in articles in political science, organizational behavior, social psychology, and organizational psychology journals.
The results of his multi-year longitudinal panel study examining the impact of technological change and globalization of production on Boeing managers and employees is reported in his book Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers (Yale University Press, 2010, co-authored with Leon Grunberg, Sarah Moore, and Pat Sikora). He is currently doing research on the global competition between Boeing, Airbus, and emergent Chinese competitors and its impacts on the people who work in these firms.
Will Howell
William Howell is the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at Chicago Harris and a professor in the Department of Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago. He has written widely on separation-of-powers issues and American political institutions, especially the presidency. He is the author of numerous books on the American presidency, and this coming January, he will be releasing a new textbook on the subject, entitled An American Presidency: Institutional Foundations of Executive Politics.
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Danae Hudson
Missouri State University
Dr. Hudson is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Missouri State University. Since 2003, she has taught large sections of Introductory Psychology in addition to other clinical psychology undergraduate and graduate courses. From 2010−2013, Dr. Hudson served as the team leader for a large-scale redesign of Missouri State University’s Introductory Psychology course. Since the implementation and successful outcomes of the redesigned course, she has published scholarship of teaching and learning research in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international venues on course redesign, utilizing educational technology, and best practices in teaching. Dr. Hudson has served as a Provost Fellow for Teaching and Learning at Missouri State University, is currently a Missouri Learning Commons Scholar, and a National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) Redesign Scholar. She is co-author of Revel Psychology for Introductory Psychology.
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David Laibson
David Laibson is chair of the Harvard Economics Department and is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1994. Dr. Laibson is also a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves as a research associate for their asset pricing, economic fluctuations, and aging working groups.
His research focuses on behavioral economics, intertemporal choice, macroeconomics, and household finance, and he leads Harvard University’s Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative. He serves on several editorial boards, as well as on the Pension Research Council (Wharton), Harvard’s Pension Investment Committee, and the Board of the Russell Sage Foundation. Dr. Laibson has previously served on the boards of the Health and Retirement Study (National Institutes of Health) and the Academic Research Council of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Dr. Laibson is a recipient of a Marshall Scholarship and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been honored with the T. W. Schultz Prize from the University of Chicago, the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security, and Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Prize in recognition of teaching excellence.
Dr. Laibson holds degrees from Harvard University (AB in economics), the London School of Economics (MSc in econometrics and mathematical economics), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD in economics).
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Jodie Lawston
California State University
Jodie M. Lawston is Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at California State University, San Marcos, and Faculty Director of Community Engaged Scholarship in the Division of Community Engagement. She holds a BA from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and an MA and PhD in sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Her books include Sisters Outside: Radical Activists Working for Women Prisoners (State University of New York Press 2009), Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars and Artists, co-edited with Ashley Lucas, and In Between the Shadows of Citizenship: Mixed Status Families, co-edited with April Shueths (University of Washington Press 2015). Her introduction to sociology textbook, Sociology: Structure and Change, was published by Pearson in 2018. She teaches courses such as Introduction to Sociology, Gender and Violence, LGBTQ Identities and Incarceration, Race, Class, and Gender in Contemporary Societies, and Popular Culture.
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Daniel Liang
Dr. Liang earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Oklahoma in 1991, and his MS and BS in Computer Science from Fudan University in Shanghai, China in 1986 and 1983. Prior to joining Armstrong State University (now merged with Georgia Southern University), he was an Associate Professor in computer science at Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he twice received the Excellence in Research award. Dr. Liang is currently a Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Southern University and has given lectures on programming internationally. He was trained in theoretical computer science. He has published in the SIAM Journal on Computing, Discrete Applied Mathematics, Acta Informatica, and Information Processing Letters. He is the author of more than thirty books and his popular computer science texts are widely used throughout the world.
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John Macionis
Kenyon College
John Macionis has divided his career between encouraging students to become active and critical members of their society and world, and supporting his colleagues through authoring the most popular titles in the discipline. His titles in introductory sociology, social problems, and urban studies express his belief that understanding society is the path to engagement and change. You can learn more about John’s titles at his personal website: macionis.com or TheSociologyPage.com.
John stands apart from other textbook authors by engaging in the full scope of production, including the selection of photos and art, and writing everything from test item files and instructor manuals to captions. As he prepares each Revel title, he continually seeks ways to expand the potential of interactive learning.
The American Sociological Association presented John with the excellence in teaching award to recognize innovation in his texts, which offered the first full chapter on gender stratification, the first chapter on global stratification, the first chapter on environment, and, most recently, the first full chapter on social media.
John enjoys regular correspondence with colleagues and students; his email address is macionis@kenyon.edu.
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Amy Marin
Amy Marin received her doctoral degree from Arizona State University in social psychology. For the past 20 years, she has been a full time faculty member at Phoenix College in the Behavioral Sciences department, where she teaches courses in Social Psychology, Human Sexuality, and Introduction to Psychology. She serves a dual role as faculty coordinator for the Maricopa Institute for Learning, a position which allows her to mentor faculty research projects related to the scholarship of teaching and learning. When she's not in the classroom, she's busy developing active learning resources and sharing what she's learned with others through workshops, presentations, and publications. She has received numerous grants and awards for innovative teaching. She also is the author, along with Roger Hock, of an introductory psychology text.
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Jeff Manza
Jeff is a Professor of Sociology and the former chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University. Before joining the faculty at NYU, he taught at Penn State and Northwestern. His teaching and research interests lay at the intersection of inequality, political sociology, and public policy. His research has examined how different types of social identities and inequalities influence political processes such as voting behavior, partisanship, and public opinion (at both the macro and micro level).
In addition to his research and scholarship, Jeff is a dedicated and award-winning teacher. While chair of the NYU Department, he launched The Sociology Project: An Introduction to the Sociological Imagination, a unique joint venture of the Department faculty which seeks to develop a new model for the introductory textbook. Each chapter is authored by a faculty member who teaches and writes on the topic. The book is also unique in that profits will be reinvested in the graduate and undergraduate sociology programs at NYU.
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Catherine Medrano
Catherine R. Medrano is an Associate Professor of Sociology at College of the Sequoias in Visalia, CA. She received her BA in Sociology and Ethnic Studies from University of California, San Diego, and earned her master’s degree in Sociology with an emphasis in Race, Ethnicity, Nation, and Education from University of California, Santa Barbara. She has taught courses in Sociology, Ethnic Studies, and Chicano-Latino Studies.
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Tracie Miller-Nobles
Tracie L. Miller-Nobles, CPA, received her master’s degree in accounting from Texas A&M University and is working on her doctoral degree in adult education also from Texas A&M University. She is an associate professor at Austin Community College. Previously she was a senior lecturer at Texas State University and has taught as an adjunct at University of Texas-Austin. Professor Miller is an author of Horngren’s Accounting textbook.
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Lourdes Norman-McKay
Dr. Lourdes Norman-McKay is a professor at Florida State College-Jacksonville where she mainly teaches Microbiology, Anatomy and Physiology. She has fifteen years of experience teaching allied health students at the associate, baccalaureate, and post baccalaureate levels. Dr. Norman-McKay earned her BS in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida and her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. Her postdoctoral fellowship in microbiology and immunology focused on the role of viruses in cancer.
Dr. Norman-McKay has extensive STEM program development experience that ranges from developing and launching a biomedical sciences baccalaureate program to serving as a curriculum designer and subject matter expert for the Florida Space Research Institute and Workforce Florida. Most recently, she was invited to serve in the U.S. Department of State’s speakers program to promote STEM education innovation and women in STEM. Dr. Norman-McKay is an active participant in the American Society for Microbiology’s (ASM) Microbiology in Nursing and Allied Health Task Force Committee, which just published curricular guidelines for microbiology courses that train nursing and allied health students. Her textbook, Microbiology: Basic and Clinical Principles was released this January.
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Mary Anne Poatsy
Mary Anne Poatsy is a senior adjunct faculty member of Montgomery County Community College, teaching various business, management, and computer application and concepts courses in classroom and online environments.
Since 1995, Poatsy has taught at various elementary and secondary institutions, including Gwynedd Mercy College, Montgomery County Community College, Muhlenberg College, and Bucks County Community College. She has also trained in the professional environment and presented at several conferences. Before teaching, Poatsy was a vice president at Shearson Lehman Hutton in the Municipal Bond Investment Banking Department.
Poatsy holds a BA in psychology and education from Mount Holyoke College and an MBA in finance from the Northwestern University J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Jill Robinson
Indiana University
Jill Robinson is a Senior Lecturer in the Chemistry Department at Indiana University and teaches courses in general, analytical, environmental chemistry. She has a BS in Chemistry from Truman State University and a PhD in Analytical and Atmospheric chemistry from the University of Colorado in Boulder. For the past five years, she has been a participant in a National Science Foundation Transforming Undergraduate Education grant to develop and disseminate collaborative learning materials for analytical chemistry. She is a fellow for the Mosaic Initiative at Indiana University, which explores best practices for the design and use of active learning classrooms. She is a coauthor of Chemistry 7th Ed., by McMurry, Fay, and Robinson, published by Pearson.
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Eric Schulz
Eric Schulz has taught mathematics at Walla Walla Community College since 1989 and began working with Mathematica in 1992. Eric loves working with students, is passionate about their success, and has maintained a career-long interest in the innovative and effective use of technology for teaching math. Schulz developed the Basic Math Assistant, Classroom Assistant, and Writing Assistant palettes that ship in Mathematica worldwide. He has co-authored multiple textbooks, including Calculus and Calculus: Early Transcendentals (with Briggs, Cochran, and Gillett). For Precalculus (with Sachs and Briggs) he has written, coded, and created dynamic eTexts combining narrative, videos, and Interactive Figures using Mathematica and CDF technology. He holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Seattle Pacific University and a graduate degree in mathematics from the University of Washington.
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Dan Shea
Colby College
Daniel M. Shea is a professor of government at Colby College. He received an MA in Campaign Management from the University of West Florida and a doctorate from the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has written or edited nearly 20 academic books. Along with Stanford University scholar Morris Fiorina, Shea recently edited Can We Talk? The Rise of Rude, Nasty, Stubborn Politics (2013, Pearson). His forthcoming book is Why Vote? Essential Questions about the Future of Elections in America (Routledge Press). Shea is also the lead author of a widely used American Government text, Living Democracy (Pearson).
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Niva Tro
Westmont College
Dr. Nivaldo Tro is a graduate from Westmont College, earned his doctorate in Chemistry from Stanford, and conducted postdoctoral research at University of California Berkeley. He has written numerous journal articles and received grants from the American Chemical Society, the Petroleum Research Fund, Research Corporation, and the National Science Foundation. He has been honored three times as Westmont’s Teacher of the Year, and was also named Faculty Researcher of the Year. Students use his three bestselling chemistry textbooks at more than 600 colleges and universities worldwide, and they are translated into five different languages. A third of all college students taking chemistry today use one of his textbooks.
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J. Noland White
Noland White is a Professor of Psychology at Georgia College in Milledgeville, GA, and a licensed Psychologist. He received his AA from Macon State College, and both his BS and MS in Psychology from Georgia College. He joined the faculty of Georgia College in 2001 after receiving his PhD in Counseling Psychology from The University of Tennessee. He currently teaches courses in Introductory Psychology, Psychology of Adjustment, Behavioral Neuroscience, Counseling and Clinical Psychology, and leads a section of Advanced Research Methods with an emphasis in psychophysiology. He has also worked with Saundra K. Ciccarelli to co-author two college textbooks, as well as a high school textbook, all on introductory psychology.
Brooke Whisenhunt
Missouri State University
Dr. Whisenhunt is a Professor of Psychology at Missouri State University. She was a member of the Introductory Psychology redesign team at Missouri State University as part of a statewide mission in course redesign through the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT). Introductory Psychology at Missouri State University was transformed into a blended course and demonstrated significant improvements in learning outcomes. As a result of these experiences, Dr. Whisenhunt’s research has focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning during the past six years. Dr. Whisenhunt has been serving as a Missouri Learning Commons Scholar to assist other institutions in the state implement redesign projects and she is also a National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) Redesign Scholar. She is co-author of Revel Psychology for Introductory Psychology.
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