U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has appointed Valerie Reyna, professor and Director of Extension in the Department of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology to serve on the President’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel to advise the President and Secretary of Education “with respect to the conduct, evaluation and effective use of the results of research related to proven, evidence-based mathematics instruction in order to foster greater knowledge and improved performance in mathematics among American students.”

Her term, effective immediately, ends April 2008, unless extended by the President. Reyna is one of 20 members outside the federal government.

Reyna, who joined the Cornell faculty last year, was one of the highest-ranking scientists to serve in federal government when she was a senior research adviser to the assistant secretary for research, U.S. Department of Education from 2001 to 2003. While there, she served as an architect of the new Institute for Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.