Deborah Stipek


Deborah Stipek is the Judy Koch Professor of Education in the and a professor by courtesy of psychology. She also serves as the Peter E. Haas Faculty Director of the at Stanford. From 2001 to 2012 and then again from 2014 to 2015 she served as the I James Quillen Dean of the GSE at Stanford. Prior to Stanford she was a faculty member at UCLA where she served for 10 of her 23 years there as the Director of the Corinne Seeds University Elementary School and the Urban Education Studies Center. During this period as a faculty member at UCLA she took a year off to work for U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.

Education

Stipek holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Yale University and a BS in Psychology from the University of Washington.

Research

Stipek's scholarship focuses on instructional effects on children's achievement motivation and on best practices in early childhood education. She is particularly concerned about policies and practices that give children of color and children living in poverty the educational advantages of their more affluent peers. In addition to over 100 articles and chapters and several edited books, she has written two books on motivation, one targeting researchers and teachers and the other targeting parents. She is particularly concerned about learning opportunities for young children living in poverty. In addition to her research on instruction, she has been involved in education policy at the federal and state level. Currently she is chairing a task force for the State of California which will recommend new requirements for people who are authorized to teach young children.

Professional Service

In addition to her scholarship, Stipek served for five years on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education. She also chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Increasing High School Students’ Engagement & Motivation to Learn and the MacArthur Foundation Network on Teaching and Learning. She currently chairs the Heising-Simons Development and Research on Early Math Education Network.