RALPH PUTNAM
Senior Program Officer, KSTF Research Fellowships

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Dr. Ralph Putnam oversees KSTF’s research activities and directs the KSTF Research Fellowship program.  

Ralph received a BA in education from the University of North Carolina in 1977 and taught in the public schools of Buncombe County, North Carolina for two years after graduation.  He earned a PhD in educational psychology with a minor in psychology from Stanford University in 1985.  Ralph conducted research on the learning and teaching of mathematics as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center for two years before serving as a faculty member in educational psychology and mathematics education at Michigan State University from 1986 to 2008.

Ralph was awarded a National Academy of Education Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship 1987-1989 for his research on the expert teaching of mathematics for understanding.  He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, receiving the 1989 American Educational Research Association’s Palmer Johnson Award for an outstanding research article. His research over the past 25 years has focused on classroom teaching and learning of mathematics, especially the learning, knowledge and beliefs of mathematics teachers.  

Ralph has been active in the educational research community, serving as editor of the journal Cognition and Instruction, from 1997 to 2002, and as Program Chair for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in 2004.