Kathryn Chval Biography

Kathryn Chval serves as the Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and as a Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Throughout her 37-year career in higher education, Chval has demonstrated leadership to enhance the culture of organizations including communication, transparency, and shared governance; teaching; academic programs; curriculum; student experience and success; justice and inclusion; and global engagement. Her leadership is distinguished by an ability to connect long-term academic strategy with the systems, relationships, and structures required to achieve it.

Chval earned three degrees from UIC and her early work in classrooms in 50 Chicago Public Schools provided her with unique opportunities to learn about effective teaching, learning, and leading; through these experiences Kathryn forged transformative relationships that altered her trajectory and leadership development, for which she remains deeply grateful. Working across schools and communities also gave her an early understanding of how policy, curriculum, institutional structures, and access shape student opportunity. Her early years in CPS were foundational for her ground-breaking research on positioning children who had been denied access to mathematics.

Chval has served in a variety of leadership roles including Dean of the College of Education at UIC and the University of Missouri. She also served as the Acting Section Head for the Teacher Professional Continuum Program in the Division of Elementary, Secondary and Informal Science at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Early in her career, Dean Chval worked in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, & Computer Science and the College of Education at UIC from 1989-2001 as the co-Director on mathematics curriculum development projects and systemic change projects funded by NSF and the Illinois State Board of Education while she earned her graduate degrees. Early in her career, this work introduced her to the design and implementation of complex, multi-institutional change efforts.

Interim Provost Chval is a respected leader, scholar and educator. She has authored or co-authored more than 70 publications, and has secured more than $20 million in funding as a PI or Co-PI. Additionally, she is the recipient of the prestigious NSF Early Career Award. Her research focuses on effective preparation models and support structures for mathematics teachers, effective mathematics teaching for multilingual learners, and curriculum standards and policies.  She is the lead author of Teaching Math to Multilingual Students: Positioning English Learners for Success. Her collection of work and research in schools, communities, and universities is focused on designing experiences that draw on student and family resources and interests as well as empathy, research, and practice.

Chval’s research accomplishments and scholarly production have been recognized nationally as well as internationally and are demonstrated through her service in leadership capacities for multiple organizations. She served as chair of the NCTM Research Committee, Chair of the AERA Ethics Committee, and Chair of the Executive Committee of AERA’s Consortium of University and Research Institutions. She also served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee Consensus Study on Supporting English Learners in STEM Subjects. Through these appointments, she has contributed to national work involving research strategy, professional ethics, institutional policy, and the translation of evidence into educational practice.

Her leadership, research, and service have been recognized with several awards and honors, including the NSF Director’s Award for Program Management Excellence, NSF Commendable Service Award, UIC College of Education Alumni Award, TODOS’ Iris M. Carl Equity and Leadership Award, Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators Early Career Award, INSIGHT Into Diversity Giving Back Award for Administrators, and American Association of University Administrators’ Neuner Award for Excellence in Professional Scholarly Publication.