Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media

Kathy Roth

Director and chief scientist of LLRI and associate researcher at UCLA

Phone: 310-664-2303

Area of Expertise: Elementary school science teaching and learning, preservice teacher learning, and inservice teacher learning in a professional development school context

Kathy Roth is the director and chief scientist of LLRI and associate researcher at UCLA, is the principal investigator for two NSF-funded projects: STeLLA and ViSTA. Her career in education includes seven years as a middle and high school science teacher followed by 15 years as a teacher educator and researcher at Michigan State University. As a teacher educator at MSU, she played a leadership role in developing and implementing a coherent 5-year teacher education program and in collaborating with K-8 teachers who worked with preservice teachers in the field. An innovative aspect of her teacher education work was the development and implementation of a science methods course in which she led her class of preservice teachers in teaching a science unit in an elementary school classroom and analyzing the elementary students' learning. Kathy's research program prior to joining LLRI focused on studies of elementary school science teaching and learning, preservice teacher learning, and inservice teacher learning in a professional development school context. Much of her research on student learning occurred in her role as a teacher-researcher, teaching elementary school science and studying her own practice and her students' learning. Kathy joined LLRI in 1999 to direct the science portion of the TIMSS 1999 Video Study.