Meghan Manfra

Biography

Dr. Meghan Manfra (PhD) is a Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences at from North Carolina State University and an affiliate member of the Center for Information Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She attended Elon College as a North Carolina Teaching Fellow and began her career as a high school history teacher. She completed a master’s degree in history at the University of North Carolina -Greensboro and received her PhD in education at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. There she was awarded The University of North Carolina’s Graduate Education Impact Award.

Meghan is the author of Action Research for Classrooms, Schools, and Communities and editor of the Handbook of Social Studies Research. Her research has appeared in 46 journal articles and book chapters. In 2020 she was awarded the National Technology Leadership Initiative Fellowship for her research on media literacy. Her recent grants include a Spencer Foundation research grant and a Library of Congress Consortium grant.

Dr Manfra previously served as the educational assessment coordinator for NSF’s ASSIST Nanotechnology Engineering Research Center at NC State. She was also the evaluator for the Durham/Franklin County Teaching American History Grant (US DOE), the Maryland Humanities Teaching with Inquiry project (PBS), and the Minecraft Education (Microsoft/Florida International University) program. She has been the external evaluator for numerous NSF-funded projects including AccelNet (Next Generation Carbons) and several Research Experiences for Undergraduate programs (REUs, including PRECISE, We Focus, Security of Smart Things, ASTERIX). She regularly contracts with North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction to support their curriculum and instruction efforts.

She and her husband, Dennis, have two daughters, Mia and Annabelle. In her free time she loves to run or hike in Umstead State Park with her dog, Watson.