Congratulations to Ellen Lust and Heather Hill for being elected into the American Academy!
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members and an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions, and perspectives to address significant challenges. During the American Revolution, the American Academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, and 60 other scholar-patriots who understood that a new republic would require institutions to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good. Academy members include those who discover and advance knowledge and apply knowledge to society's problems. Since 1780, more than 14,500 members have been elected.
Ellen Lust is the Founding Director of the Governance and Local Development Institute at Yale University (est. 2013), at the University of Gothenburg (est. 2015), and a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. She received her M.A. in Modern Middle East and North African Studies (1993) and PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan (1997).
Ellen has conducted fieldwork and implemented surveys in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Zambia. She has authored numerous books, textbooks, and articles, including, most recently, Everyday Choices: The Role of Competing Authorities and Social Institutions in Politics and Development (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Ellen's current research examines the role of social institutions and local authorities in governance. She is also leading GLD's work on the development of a tool to gauge sub-national variations in governance systematically.
Heather Hill studies policies and programs designed to improve teacher and teaching quality. Her recent research focuses on teacher professional development, instructional coaching, teacher evaluation, changes over time in teachers' mathematical knowledge and instructional quality in mathematics, and the teacher experiences and characteristics that lead to high-quality instruction and stronger student outcomes.
Hill and her team have developed assessments that capture teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching and teachers' mathematical quality of instruction; assessments are now widely available to researchers, instructional coaches, evaluators, and policy-makers via online training and administration systems. Hill is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), serves on the editorial boards of several journals, and is an advisor to numerous research projects and policy efforts in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-author of Learning Policy: When State Education Reform Works (2001) with David K. Cohen.
