Diane Grayson Celebrates 30 Years of Contributions to Higher Education

    PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA, February 5, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Diane Grayson, Ph.D., Director of Institutional Audits for the Council on Higher Education, has been recognized for showing dedication, leadership and excellence in science and technology education and higher education.

Dr. Grayson has 30 years of professional experience in higher education. In September 2012, she became the director of institutional audits for the Council on Higher Education. Since then, she has been tasked with creating a national initiative to enhance university teaching and learning and improve student success. Over the years, she has established herself as an expert in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, as well as professional development. On a daily basis, she is responsible for conceptualizing and coordinating quality enhancement in higher education. After extensive consultation and research, she designed a national quality enhancement project, which will run from 2014 to 2018.

Before working in this capacity, Dr. Grayson was the manager for academic development in engineering at the University of Pretoria. She also directed her own consultancy, Andromeda Science Education, and worked as head of the Centre for the Improvement of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, which she founded when she was a professor of science education at the University of South Africa. Before that, she was the academic vice-rector of the Mathematics, Science and Technology Education College, coordinator of the Science Foundation Program, and an associate professor in physics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She founded the Southern African Association for Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education.

Throughout her career, Dr. Grayson has worn many hats, including professor, director, manager, administrator, physicist, researcher, business owner and consultant. But fundamentally, she is a teacher. While she has extensive scientific training, research and management experience, and academic knowledge about how people learn, everything that Dr. Grayson has done and continues to do is focused on helping the people she works with, both directly and indirectly, to be the best that they can be. Though she initially worked primarily with individual students, she now focuses on work with systems, leaders and policies, through which she can reach more people, albeit indirectly. Though her responsibilities may have changed, her core concerns are the same - to help people learn and grow as fulfilled individuals and contributing members of society.

Looking back, Dr. Grayson attributes her success to her hard work and determination, as well as her family's support. She became involved in her profession because she has always had a love of physics and teaching and sees herself as a teacher in the broad sense of helping people in her professional sphere to achieve their potential.

Dr. Grayson received a Ph.D. in physics with specialization in physics education from the University of Washington in 1990, and a Master of Science in physics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1983. She was recently inducted into Worldwide Branding and also maintains affiliation with the Academy of Science of South Africa, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Educational Research Association, the American Society for Engineering Education, the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa, and the South African Institute of Physics.

In recognition of Dr. Grayson's achievements, she received a Fulbright fellowship for her Ph.D., an honorary Ph.D. from Umea University, and an education innovation laureate award. Dr. Grayson is a founding member and former deputy chair of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics committee of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Additionally, she has served as a South African representative for the Network of African Science Academies' initiatives to improve science education for seven years.

Dr. Grayson proudly recalls her achievements throughout the years. She collaborated with the French Academy of Science to pilot inquiry-based science education in South African primary schools, and she designed the Engineering Augmented Degree Program at The University of Pretoria, which increased the one-year retention rate for disadvantaged students in a five-year degree program by 25 percent in two years. Dr. Grayson also served as a local program chair for the Fourth International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Conference on Women in Physics. For six years, she was an elected member of the International Commission on Physics Education, and she is Andromeda Science Education founder and director. She was the founder of the Centre for the Improvement of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, which was established with the support of $1 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

For more information about Dr. Diane Grayson, please visit her LinkedIn page at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/diane-grayson/15/261/751.

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