Mark Loveland is a Senior Research Associate II on WestEd’s Learning and Technology team. He is the project co-director for updating assessment frameworks for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); co-director of a project focusing on the National Education Technologies Activities (NETA), providing logistic, analytic, and policy support to design and implement the NETA; director of STEMworks, providing technical assistance to partnering states and large districts for identifying effective STEM learning programs; project director for WestEd’s research partnership with NewSchools Venture Fund’s EdTech Ignite Challenge, providing research support to edtech companies for product improvement; and principal investigator for multiple IES-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) studies of a science laboratory sensor system.
Loveland has 25 years of experience working in scientific research and science, mathematics, and technology education. His biomedical research investigated the molecular genetics of breast cancer and other human cancers. Loveland’s experience in STEM education spans a wide spectrum, from teaching secondary biology, chemistry, and environmental science to the development of formal and informal science education resources. He has created curriculum and teacher professional development programs at the National Academy of Sciences and worked as the coordinator for action research efforts to transform middle school mathematics and science teaching and learning in San Francisco public schools.
He received his doctorate from Georgetown University in the Tumor Biology Program at the Lombardi Cancer Center, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles.