Senior Associate Director
Susan L. Ganter serves as senior associate director of the Center for Excellence in STEM Education and research professor of physics and astronomy at West Virginia University. Prior to WVU, Dr. Ganter was provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at The University of Texas Permian Basin (UTPB). Her research focuses on the evaluation of innovations in post-secondary STEM curricula, also including articulation issues from K-12 to college education. For the past decade, she has led a federally-funded national consortium of fifteen institutions working to improve classroom practices in undergraduate mathematics, with a focus on interdisciplinary collaborations that result in the development of courses in both mathematics and the partner disciplines that support the preparation of students for careers in STEM and non-STEM disciplines.
Dr. Ganter previously served as a dean (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University), school director (Virginia Tech), department chair (East Carolina University), and mathematical sciences faculty member at Clemson University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, California State University, San Bernardino, and Santa Barbara City College. She also has served as national director of the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) and executive director of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), and was the founding director of the National Numeracy Network, a non-profit (403C) organization whose purpose is to develop and disseminate materials and professional development opportunities that focus on quantitative literacy for all citizens.
Dr. Ganter was awarded a prestigious Senior Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation and the American Educational Research Association, and her scholarly work has been funded continuously since 1994. Her education includes Ph.D. and master’s degrees from University of California, Santa Barbara and two bachelor’s degrees (Mathematical Sciences and Music) from Southern Methodist University.