Dr. Dana L. Carmichael began her teaching career in Japan. After five years, she joined Minneapolis Public Schools as a social studies teacher. In 1995, Dana earned a Fulbright Scholarship, to write authentic curriculum in Namibia on how education promotes democracy in new nations. Her international background, which included living in Chile, Spain and Austria as a child, led her to pursue a PhD in Comparative International Development in Education Studies in the Department of Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, which she completed in 2003.
Ultimately her passion for teaching urban students kept her in the Twin Cities. She first learned about Dr. Newmann’s work in the Mid-1990’s while serving as the K-12 District Social Studies Curriculum Specialist. She and Dr. Patricia Avery (University of Minnesota) collaborated on a number of early AIW projects. Her experiences directing these projects, including a Minnesota Best Practices grant (2000) and Federal Teaching American History (2001-2004), combined with additional experiences, including Director of NCLB, Staff Development Director, and Learning Forward academy graduate (2007), prepared her to accept Newmann’s invitation to join him and Dr. King on the Iowa-AIW project. Since 2008, she has served as Executive Director of the Center for Authentic Intellectual, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and two children. For more information about how the Center and supports educators learn to sustain transformational reform by promoting academic rigor through teacher reflection, visit the Center website at www.centerforaiw.com
