Athens, Ga. – Jeremy Kilpatrick, Regents Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Georgia, will receive the 2007 Felix Klein Medal from the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction in recognition of his more than 40 years of distinguished achievements in mathematics education research and development.
A national associate of the National Academy of Sciences, Kilpatrick is currently co-chairing a national committee that will send its findings on mathematics and science education to the transition team for the next president of the United States. Coordinated by the National Academy of Education and the National Research Council, the NAEd/ED in ’08 Project is working to connect policymakers in a new administration and Congress with the best available evidence on education policy issues.
Kilpatrick is a principal investigator in the Center for Proficiency in Teaching Mathematics, a joint initiative by UGA and the University of Michigan funded by the National Science Foundation. He co-edited an influential translation of Soviet Studies in the Psychology of Learning and Teaching Mathematics from 1969-75 and was the editor of the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education from 1982-88. He was a co-editor of the Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress on Mathematical Education in 1983 and the first and second editions of the International Handbook of Mathematics Education.
He was chair of a National Research Council committee whose study of how to improve children’s learning of mathematics gained national attention in 2001. The report resulting from that study, Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics, recommended a major overhaul of mathematics instruction, curricula and assessment in the nation’s schools.
Besides teaching graduate classes on mathematics curriculum and research, he has taught courses in mathematics education at European and Latin American universities and received Fulbright awards for his work in New Zealand, Spain, Colombia and Sweden. A charter member of the U.S. Mathematical Sciences Education Board, Kilpatrick served two terms as vice president of the ICMI and has received many previous awards for his work, most notably the 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics Education from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Born in Iowa and raised in Southern California, Kilpatrick began his teaching career in 1957 at Garfield Junior High School in Berkeley, Calif. After earning a doctorate at Stanford University, he worked at Teachers College, Columbia University before joining the UGA faculty in 1975. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
The ICMI award recipients are selected by an anonymous international jury of scholars. The official presentation of the 2007 medals will be made during the opening ceremony of the international ICME conference in Monterrey, Mexico on July 7.