Mindy Kornhaber

Mindy Kornhaber

Associate Professor of Education

Educational Theory & Policy
300 Rackley Building
University Park, PA 16802-3203
Email: kornhaber@psu.edu
Phone: 814-865-7920
Fax: 814-865-1480

Introduction

Mindy Kornhaber is an associate professor at Penn State. She joined the faculty in 2001 after serving as a researcher at Harvard University for more than a decade. Her work draws equally from the fields of social policy and human development and focuses on two related questions: How do institutions and the policies surrounding them enhance or impede the development of individual potential? How can individual potential be developed both to a high level and on an equitable basis? For the past several years, she has been concerned with testing policies and their influence on educational equity and students' intellectual development. She is also concerned with assessment, educational equity, how theories of intelligence influence school practice, and school reform.

Publications

See a complete list here.

Professional Experience & Activities

• Civil Rights Project (1998-2001), Harvard Law School. Principal investigator and research director exploring the civil rights implications of the recent trend by states to adopt high-stakes tests for K-12 students; organized a conference for scholars and civil rights leaders and litigators to illuminate the consequences of such tests for minority youngsters and to generate approaches to using test data in ways that are constructive for student learning; co-editor of the book of papers to be produced from the conference; have prepared and presented research concerning high stakes testing in college and graduate programs.

• Project Zero (1988-2000), Harvard Graduate School of Education. Principal investigator for the project on Schools Using Multiple Intelligences Theory (SUMIT).

• Currently involved in writing articles and books on education, intelligence, and testing; peer reviews for education and psychology journals, and grant proposals. Have also written book reviews and co-authored a textbook on intelligence.

• Consultant to schools, school districts, educational associations, foundations, parent groups, publishers, and media corporations on the nature of intelligence, how people learn, testing, the development of expertise, and building school environments that serve diverse learners.

• Program coordinator for a legal education and exchange program among Columbia University, American law firms, and Chinese universities and ministries. Organized international law conference in Shanghai, arranged for internships in U.S. law firms of Chinese legal trainees, and helped to secure placements in Chinese universities for American law students.

Honors & Awards

• Larsen Fellow Award, Harvard Graduate School of Education; award for first-year doctoral studies, 1989-1990.

• Dissertation Support Fund, Harvard Graduate School of Education; grant to support doctoral dissertation, 1996.

• Radcliffe Grants for Graduate Women, Radcliffe College; grant to support the final phase of the doctoral dissertation, 1997.

Education

• Doctor of Education 1997, Administration, Planning, and Social Policy (Concentration in Research)
  Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Master of Education, Human Development (in passing) 1990; Administration, Planning, and Social Policy 1988, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Postgraduate Student 1981 - 1986, Columbia University School of General Studies (coursework in writing and in Chinese)

• Bachelor of Music 1978, Boston University School for the Arts