Bryant appoints first director of faculty development and innovation

SMITHFIELD – Bryant University has appointed Edward Kairiss, who directed strategic projects at Yale University’s Center for Teaching and Learning, as Bryant’s first director of faculty development and innovation.
Bryant’s business and liberal arts education has a focus on international education and innovative models of teaching and learning, and has garnered national recognition by the Davis Educational Foundation and Hanover Research. The university’s 50,000-square-foot Academic Innovation Center is scheduled to open in September.
“Bryant’s distinctive 24/7 learning environment, combining innovative academic and student life programs in an award-winning setting, builds the skills and increases the confidence of students,” said Bryant President Ronald K. Machtley. “Edward will play an important role on our leadership team to help define our future and set the pace for others to follow in advancing our mission – creating a new model for educating innovative leaders with character who will make a difference around the world.”
Kairiss called the decision to work at Bryant “an easy one.”
“This is an exciting time in Bryant history,” he noted. “I was inspired by the university’s energetic and visionary leadership, the contagious enthusiasm of the faculty and the opportunity to share in advancing Bryant’s mission of educational excellence and transformation.”
Bryant Provost Glenn Sulmasy welcomed Kairiss’ upcoming contribution to the university’s continuously evolving “innovative culture.”
Kairiss joined the Yale faculty in 1989 as a member of the department of psychology and the interdepartmental neuroscience program, with teaching and research interests in computational and cognitive neuroscience and the biophysical basis of memory. In 1997, he began work in educational technologies at Yale, led the development of Yale’s first learning management system and formed the Instructional Technology Group to support faculty and students in use of technology in teaching and learning.
He earned his degrees in Canada and holds a doctorate in neuroscience from McMaster University and a B.S. in physics from the University of Waterloo. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Otago in New Zealand, the Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., and at Yale University.

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