Dr. Catherine Horn, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, has been recognized by the prestigious Fulbright Scholar program for 2011. The Program honors distinguished scholars and professors worldwide who, like Dr. Horn, are leaders in the educational, political, economic and cultural lives of their countries.

During her time as a Fulbright Scholar, Horn will travel to Santiago Chile where she will spend five months researching and teaching.  Although her main focus will be to explore the state of educational opportunity in Chile, she hopes those strategies will also help to serve higher educational systems around the world.

During her studies abroad, she hopes to learn more about “the impacts of shifts in admission policies and complimentary supplemental financial supports, and the effects of these changes on access for underrepresented and low-income students.”  Dr. Horn plans to focus on Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile because it has in place ambitious and successful efforts to help low-income students succeed. This university serves as an excellent site for policy and program evaluation to provide insights internationally to institutions as they seek to build and sustain strong educational reform.

Dr. Horn serves as the Dean & Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair for the UH College of Education and executive director of the Institute for Education Policy Research and Evaluation. She also serves as director of the Center for Research, Evaluation and Advancement of Teacher Education and director of the UH Education Research Center.  Her research interests include: systemic barriers to college access for traditionally underrepresented students; K-12 high stakes testing; college admission policy; the effects of poverty on educational outcomes and quantitative methods.

The Fulbright Program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.