DURHAM, NC--(Marketwire - May 10, 2011) - Renowned literacy scholar Jill Fitzgerald, Ph.D. will join MetaMetrics® on June 1 as a distinguished research scientist. Dr. Fitzgerald previously spent nearly 32 years with the School of Education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as senior associate dean and chief academic officer, director of graduate studies for the School, and interim dean. Her research spans more than a quarter of a century and has resulted in more than 100 works.
As a professor of literacy, Dr. Fitzgerald has been devoted to mentoring doctoral students and ensuring that her research results were written for both researcher and practitioner audiences. She has made numerous contributions in the areas of literacy issues for multilingual learners and students' writing development. Dr. Fitzgerald's current research projects address young Latino students' English-reading growth, especially in relation to oral-language level; children's reading growth associated with federally funded large-scale reading instructional implementations; and the impact of bilingual education programs on student achievement.
"We are very fortunate to have such a distinguished scholar joining our organization," said MetaMetrics President and co-founder Malbert Smith III, Ph.D. "Jill brings distinctive experience to help further our research on reading and writing as well as second language learning. She will work across all of our departments and will continue her mentoring with young scholars at MetaMetrics."
Dr. Fitzgerald has won the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Review of Research Award and the International Reading Association's (IRA) Dina Feitelson Award for Research (with colleague George Noblit, Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education at The School of Education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). She currently serves on editorial boards for several national and international research journals and is an associate editor for the Journal of Educational Psychology. She has provided extensive service to local, national, and international literacy and educational associations. Dr. Fitzgerald has contributed to various federal groups as a review panelist and presenter for bilingual and English language learners' literacy issues, including the Office of Education's Office of Bilingual and Language Minorities Affairs, the National Institute for Literacy, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Dr. Fitzgerald's most recent accomplishment is her induction into the Reading Hall of Fame. She will be honored at the IRA annual convention, May 8-11, in Orlando, Fla. Fitzgerald will join other nationally and internationally prominent researchers recognized as having made extraordinary contributions to theory and research in the study of literacy. Criteria for membership in the Reading Hall of Fame includes being widely known and respected by peers in the profession, a track record of significant research and service to the field of reading.
Fitzgerald earned a doctorate in research and evaluation in reading from State University of New York at Buffalo and a master's of science in elementary education from State University College of New York at Cortland. She holds a bachelor's of arts in general literature from Harpur College, SUNY at Binghamton, NY.
MetaMetrics' reading, writing and mathematics frameworks differ from other measurement systems in that they use common, developmental scales to match students with instructional resources and activities that will meet and challenge their abilities. For more than twenty years, the organization's work has been increasingly recognized worldwide for its distinct value in differentiating instruction and personalizing learning. In the U.S., MetaMetrics' research on postsecondary reading demands resulted in the Common Core State Standards citing Lexile® measures as key indicators of text complexity and providing Lexile bands for reading comprehension development by grade levels to ensure students are preparing for the text demands of college and careers. Each year, tens of millions of students worldwide receive a Lexile measure that helps them find targeted readings from the more than 400 million books, articles and websites that have been measured. For more information, visit