Timothy Shanahan (educator)

Timothy Shanahan is an educator, researcher, and education policy-maker focused on literacy education. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Education, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education, Department of Curriculum & Instruction, and he has held a visiting research appointment at Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was elected president of the International Literacy Association in 2004. He operates the popular informational website, Shanahan on Literacy. He was recently recognized as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world, according to a recent study published by Stanford University scholars (Ioannidis, Boyack, & Baas, 2020).

Shanahan previously served as Director of Reading for the Chicago Public Schools under Chief Executive Officer Arne Duncan. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on the board of advisors of the National Institute of Literacy, and he completed his term under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.^[1]

Shanahan has written or edited numerous books and monographs and has written more than 200 articles, chapters, and other publications on literacy education. He has been co-editor of the Journal of Literacy Research and the Yearbook of the National Reading Association. Currently he serves on several editorial boards, including Review of Educational Research, Journal of Educational Psychology, Scientific Studies in Reading, Reading Research Quarterly, Reading Psychology, and Reading & Writing Quarterly: An International Journal. He was a member of the influential National Reading Panel. He also chaired two other federal research review panels, the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and the National Early Literacy Panel, and helped author the widely adopted Common Core State Standards.^[2]