Dr. Carol Cirulli Lanham

Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning & Professor of Instruction

School of Economic, Political, & Policy Sciences

UT Dallas

Dr. Carol Cirulli Lanham is a professor of instruction in sociology at The University of Texas at Dallas, where she also serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. She is currently coordinating the expansion of Virtual Exchange/COIL projects at UT Dallas, and received a Fulbright Specialist appointment in 2021 to offer professional development in online teaching and Virtual Exchange at foreign host institutions. The UT System recognized her work in this area by awarding her a Curricular Innovation Grant for the project, “Use of Virtual Exchange Education to Promote Global Engagement.” 

Carol is a 2021 winner of the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and a 2018 winner of UT Dallas President’s Outstanding Teaching Award in Online/Blended Instruction. Her expertise in online teaching proved to be a vital resource during the COVID-19 pandemic when the university pivoted to online instruction. Carol began offering regular virtual workshops and seminars to faculty as they moved online, including daily sessions over the two-week extended spring break of 2020. In recognition of her critical contributions during the pandemic, her colleagues renamed the school’s online teaching award to be the “Carol Cirulli Lanham Online Teaching Award.”

In addition to teaching in sociology, Carol has served as Assistant Dean for the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences since 2013. She initially focused on undergraduate education, and later shifted to outreach and community engagement. Within the school, she teaches all the first-year students in a freshman seminar course she developed, Critical Issues in the Social Sciences. In this role, she has been working closely with the dean on freshman recruitment and retention.

Carol earned her undergraduate degree in government and economics at the University of Texas at Austin and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Dallas. Before joining the UT Dallas faculty in 2011, she worked as a journalist and author.