Penelope Peterson

Penelope Peterson accepted her appointment as Dean, Northwestern University, in September 1997 after serving as University Distinguished Professor of Education at Michigan State University and Sears-Bascom Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under Peterson’s leadership, SESP has moved up from a rank of 20 by U.S. News and World Reports to being ranked consistently among the top ten schools of education nationally. Peterson’s books include Restructuring in the Classroom: Teaching, Learning, and School Organization (with Richard Elmore and Sarah McCarthey) and Learning from Our Lives: Women, Research, and Autobiography in Education (with Anna Neumann). Peterson is past president of the American Educational Research Association. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Educational Research Association. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Recently she co-edited (with Eva Baker and Barry McGaw) the International Encyclopedia of Education, Third Edition, which incorporates eight volumes. In addition to her role as dean, Peterson co-teaches with Andrew Ortony the beginning course in the Learning Sciences graduate program, and she directs the undergraduate Honors Program in the School of Education and Social Policy.