Office of the Provost

Announcement

June 20, 2008

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Charles Perfetti, University Professor of Psychology, has accepted my offer to become the Director of the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, effective September 1, 2008. Dr. Perfetti earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois and his PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Perfetti has served as Associate Director of the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) since 2000, along with serving as a Senior Scientist at LRDC and a Professor of Psychology and Linguistics. During his career at the University, which began in 1967 with his appointment as an Assistant Professor of Psychology, he has also served as chair of the PhD program in Cognitive Psychology; chair of the Department of Psychology; and interim chair of the Department of Linguistics. He is a faculty member in the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and serves as Chief Scientist of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. In addition to his positions in Pittsburgh,   Dr. Perfetti has held a range of visiting positions: Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institut fur Psycholinguistik in the Netherlands; honorary visiting professor at the University of Auckland; and the Leverhulme Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. 

Dr. Perfetti’s central research interest is in the cognitive science of language and reading processes, including the nature of reading ability, the role of word recognition in comprehension, and the influence of writing systems in reading. He has been recognized with numerous awards and served on a range of significant institutional boards and panels. He has given dozens of invited addresses,  most recently the Jeanne Chall Lecture at Harvard University on “Beyond Decoding: The Centrality of Word Knowledge to Reading Skill.” Dr. Perfetti serves as chair of the Commission on Reading Research for the National Institute for Literacy and received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. Dr. Perfetti has published well over one hundred and fifty journal articles and book chapters; he is author or co-author of seven books. He has served or is serving on editorial boards of seven major journals.

Dr. Perfetti will provide strong academic leadership to LRDC. He is a distinguished scholar who possesses the necessary administrative experience to build on the Center’s strengths and priorities; he is keenly aware of the importance of research grant funding and astute faculty recruitment. I look forward to helping Dr. Perfetti and the LRDC community further develop the strengths that have led to the Center’s internationally pre-eminent reputation.

 

Sincerely,

James V. Maher

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