Pedro Reyes, Ph.D.

Pedro Reyes, Ph.D., is The Ashbel Smith Professor of Education Policy, Department of Educational Administration, The University of Texas at Austin and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Planning and Assessment at The University of Texas System

 

He was named Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Planning and Assessment at The University of Texas System Office of Academic Affairs effective January 15, 2003 where he works with education policy, within the System, State, and federal levels. He directs the Student Learning Assessment Project and academic planning for all the UT System components. He manages an annual fund of $50 million dollars to improve research capacity among academic institutions.  Dr. Reyes has been involved with the execution of the annual tuition and fee plans, and the annual budget presentations. He has served on System Task Forces on issues such as accountability, capital planning, admissions, funding, and program quality, among others. He also serves on national and State boards related to education assessment. 

He currently is Professor of Education Policy and Administration at The University of Texas at Austin, where he also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology. He also is involved with the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin (as a Faculty Associate and PI). He received his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a member of the faculty at Texas since January, 1991. He has a combined 25 years of teaching experience in public schools and higher education and won major awards for his graduate teaching. He is past-president of the University Council for Educational Administration and a Fellow of the National Academy of Education.

Professor Reyes is the Director of the UT-Austin Education Research Center which is a virtual research center dedicated to help State policymakers evaluate or analyze education policies.  As a social scientist, Dr. Reyes writes on the subject of the social organization of schools, particularly about the conditions fostering high academic success for children of poverty. He also continues to research and evaluate school reform efforts in Texas through funded projects from the National Science Foundation, Houston Endowment, Inc., Carnegie Foundation of New York, Gates Foundation, Brown Foundation, Annenberg Foundation, among others.

Professor Reyes is the author of Resiliency and Success:  Migrant children in the US (2004); Lessons from High Poverty High Performance Schools: Creating Learning Communities (1999); and Teachers and Their Workplace: Commitment, Performance, and Productivity (1990). In addition, he has authored more than 100 articles, book chapters, monographs, including a significant number of papers presented at national and international academic conferences. His research has appeared in such journals as Educational Administration Quarterly, the High School Journal, Journal of Educational Research, and the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences. He was Editor of the Book Review Section of Educational Researcher, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and reviewer of many other scholarly journals.

He has raised more than 22 million dollars in research and development grants from The Spencer Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Foundation, the Texas Education Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Houston Endowment, Inc., The Brown Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education, among others.

Pedro Reyes was the 30th president of the University Council for Educational Administration, which is a national consortium of 70 major research universities in the United and Canada advancing the knowledge base in educational administration. He has served on numerous national committees to review the quality of university programs, such as the Ohio Board of Regents Review for Education Programs. He also has advised the Ford Foundation on program evaluation for the urban partnerships program.

 

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Wanda Mercer, Ph.D.

Wanda Mercer, Ph.D.

 

Before joining the University of Texas System, Dr. Wanda Mercer was Vice President for Student Life at Tarleton State University for eighteen years. Prior to that, she served 16 years at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, including eight years as Associate Vice President and Dean of Students. In these roles, she was responsible for staff, programs, budgets, facilities, planning and assessment, and crisis response for all departments in Student Affairs. In addition to overseeing student affairs programs, over the years Dr. Mercer had responsibility for financial aid, student recruiting, new student orientation, disabled student services, diversity initiatives, first-year success programs and academic support services. She has developed successful federal and state grants and was a member to the graduate faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership at Tarleton State University.

 

Dr. Mercer received her Bachelor of Arts and Master’s of Education degrees from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas and her Doctorate of Education from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Dr. Mercer has been active in state and national professional associations including service as president of the National Center for Academic Integrity, the Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators, and Council of Student Services Vice Presidents. She served on the national board for the Association of Student Judicial Affairs and completed a two-year term as a fellow in the Academic Leadership Academy of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. In the spring of 1997, Dr. Mercer was selected as a participant in the Fulbright Scholar program to Germany and later that year was an exchange delegate to France for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA).

 

In 1999, Dr. Mercer was awarded the John Jones Award for Outstanding Performance as a Dean by NASPA and in 2004 she received the Distinguished Service Award from the Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators.

 

Most recently, Dr. Mercer served as a team leader for the Texas International Education Consortium in its planning efforts for Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd University in Damman, Saudi Arabia and for Al Saleh University in Sana’a, Yemen.  In 2010, Dr. Mercer was selected by the Foundation of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators as a Pillar of the Profession.

 

Dr. Mercer has made numerous presentations at regional and national conferences and to academic and civic groups.  She and her husband Jim are the parents of three children.

Martha Ellis, Ph.D.

Martha Ellis, Ph.D.

 

Martha Ellis joined the UT System on July 1, 2008, as Associate Vice Chancellor for Community College Partnerships. In this role, Martha coordinates the UT System community college transfer initiatives and promotes collaboration between the 50 community college districts and UT institutions to make it easier for students to transfer and increase the number of students who transfer from community colleges to UT institutions.

 

Dr. Ellis is a commissioner for the Commission on Colleges for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools as well as the Commission on Women in Higher Education for the American Council on Education. She recently completed her tenure as President of Region XIV of the National Junior College Athletic Association and Board member of the American Association of Community Colleges. She was president of the Association of Texas Colleges and Universities, Texas Community College Association, and Hall of Honor for Phi Theta Kappa. Dr. Ellis is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Psychological Association.

 

Martha has served for 25 years in community colleges in Texas. Prior to coming the UT System, Ellis was president of Lee College in Baytown, Texas. During her 6 year tenure the college became an Achieving the Dream College and the only college in Texas to be selected for the Clinton Climate Initiative. The college was recognized as the 6th fastest growing mid size community college in the nation, became a Hispanic Serving Institution and increased the college endowment by 315% during these years. Martha was also president of Texas State Technical College in Waco and held various leadership positions and faculty member at Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. She began her professional career at Eastfield College of the Dallas County Community College District.

 

In addition to her PhD from the University of North Texas, Ellis has a Master of Science degree from University of Texas at Dallas, and bachelor’s degree from American Christian College. She completed post graduate work at Columbia University in New York as well as an internship at the Albert Ellis Institute State University of New York.

 

Ellis has won numerous teaching awards, has scholarly publications, and is a presenter at national conferences on leadership development, economic development strategic partnership, and sustainability. Martha has served on various chamber, economic development and hospital boards.

 

Martha and her husband, Steve, live in Austin with their humane society puppy CharlieB.

Dale Klein, Ph.D.

Dale Klein, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Dale E. Klein rejoined The University of Texas System in January of 2011 as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Office of Academic Affairs. In April of 2010, after serving 8 ½ years as a Presidential Appointee, Dr. Klein returned to Texas from Washington, D.C., working at The University of Texas at Austin as the Associate Director of The Energy Institute, Associate Vice President for Research, and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear Program).

Dr. Klein was sworn into the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2006, and was appointed Chairman by President George W. Bush, serving in that role from July 2006 to May 2009. As Chairman, Dr. Klein was the principal executive officer and official spokesman for the NRC, responsible for conducting the administrative, organizational, long-range planning, budgetary, and certain personnel functions of the agency. Additionally, he had the ultimate authority for all NRC functions pertaining to an emergency involving an NRC licensee. The remainder of this term was as Commissioner of the NRC from May 2009 to March 2010.

Before joining the NRC, Dr. Klein served as the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs. He was appointed to this position by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in 2001. In this position, he served as the principal staff assistant and advisor to the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics for all policy and planning matters related to nuclear weapons and nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs.

Previously, Dr. Klein served as the Vice-Chancellor for Special Engineering Programs at The University of Texas System and as a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear Program) at The University of Texas at Austin. During his tenure at the university, Dr. Klein was Director of the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory, Deputy Director of the Center for Energy Studies, and Associate Dean for Research and Administration in the College of Engineering.

Honors and awards Dr. Klein has received include Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Nuclear Society, Engineer of the Year for the State of Texas, the University of Missouri Faculty-Alumni Award, and the University of Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering.

A native of Missouri, Dr. Klein holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has published more than 100 technical papers and reports, and co-edited one book. He has made more than 400 presentations on energy and has written numerous technical editorials on energy issues that have been published in major newspapers throughout the United States.