The National Center for Education Research (NCER) supports rigorous research that addresses the nation’s most pressing education needs, from early childhood to adult education.
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NCER Grantee Levy Wins Presidential Award for Excellence to Education ScienceRoy Levy (Arizona State University), an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grantee, has been named as the Department of Education's recipient of the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Dr. Levy is one of the 94 researchers named by President Obama as PECASE recipients, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.
The awards, established by President Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Sixteen federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America's preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.
Dr. Levy is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social and Family Dynamics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He specializes in quantitative methods in the social sciences and has devoted his career to increasing the depth and quality of information that can be gleaned from assessments. Dr. Levy is developing a procedure for verifying and identifying the number of student skills that are measured by complex assessment items. Software to implement the procedure also will be developed and made freely available to researchers. For more information about his IES-funded project, please visit http://ies.ed.gov/funding/grantsearch/details.asp?ID=952. In addition, Dr. Levy has worked with Cisco on improving their assessment activities in the Cisco Networking Academy Program, seeking to ensure that assessments used for career pathway decisions around the world are both technically accurate and valid assessments of students' knowledge, skills, and abilities.The White House, following recommendations from participating agencies, confers the awards annually. The U.S. Department of Education has participated in the PECASE program since 2006. A complete list of the recipients of the 2010 PECASE Awards can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/26/president-obama-honors-outstanding-early-career-scientists.
Previous Department of Education recipients are Dr. Jennifer Cromley of Temple University, Dr. Catherine Bradshaw of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Katherine A. Rawson of Kent State University, Dr. Nonie Lesaux of the Harvard School of Education, Dr. Nicole McNeil of the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Gregory Fabiano of the University at Buffalo, Dr. Laura Justice of The Ohio State University, and Dr. Carol Connor of Florida State University.