Faculty Member Named Top 200 Scholar Nationally
Pitt School of Education faculty member Lindsay Page has been named to Education Week’s 2021 RHSU 200 Edu-Scholar Public Influence Ranking, which recognizes U.S. scholars who did the most to shape educational practice and policy in the last year.
RHSU selects the top 200 scholars from a pool of more than 20,000 university-based scholars in the U.S.
Coming in at No. 168 on the list, Page was selected based on her groundbreaking work at the intersection of education and economics.
“The work I do thinks about the ways that students can behave in imperfect systems. We think about ways that we can proactively support, guide, and nudge students to better navigate the complex systems,” says Page.
Recently, Page has studied the impact of nudges on students’ behavior as they fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA process can cause confusion for students and even deter them from enrolling in college. Page and her team designed and tested low-touch strategies to remind students what steps they need to complete the process.
Page has also published work about nudging students to reduce summer melt. Melt is the broad phenomenon of students planning to attend a college but not making the transition successfully.
“Across all of my studies, the most fundamental finding is that support for students has to be proactive. It’s not sufficient to have offices that say, ‘Our door is open!’ Humans are imperfect – students included; they might not take advantage of those resources, even if they know the resources exist,” says Page.
“If we are serious about supporting students in their educational trajectories, we have to reach out to students and provide care, proactively rather than reactively,” says Page.
Page expressed gratitude for support from the Pitt School of Education and the Pittsburgh academic community.
“I’m grateful that Pitt Education has given me the time and space to develop my research,” says Page. “I feel well supported by the school and my terrific colleagues who have given me feedback on my work, and I also have to give a shout-out to the great graduate students I work with!”
Page is also a past recipient of the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
Learn More
View Lindsay Page’s TEDx Talk, Proactively Supporting Students To and Through College.
The Pitt School of Education PhD program is currently accepting applications. Apply here.
