Amber Rowland, PhD, is an Assistant Research Professor with the Center for Research on Learning and Co-Director of the Advanced Learning Technologies (ALTEC) Division. She specializes in collaborative, practical and engaging adult professional learning with an emphasis on current instructional practice and the powerful integration of technology. She is particularly interested in supporting professional learning at a distance and is constantly pursuing methods for tapping into the collective capacity of educators and students. She serves as a Co-Principal Investigator on the Office of Special Education and Policy (OSEP)-funded, Stepping Up grant, called VOISS, which is building a virtual reality environment to teach students social competency skills and the teacher progress monitoring and professional learning needed to implement and generalize learned skills to the physical classroom. In addition, she is a Co-Investigator on the IES-funded grant called Personal Selves + Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction project, as well as Co-Director of the Literacy Network of Kansas, Virtual Coaching program.

Her experiences range from Kindergarten to the college classroom where she has taught at multiple levels, both face-to-face and online. She has served as a technology integration specialist, project manager for the Technology Rich Classroom, Title IID initiative in Kansas, an instructor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas, and the director of multiple federal, state, and local initiatives.

Dr. Rowland travels to local, state and national venues and conferences working with teachers on digital-age instruction and the general integration of technology to support all learners, especially those who struggle. In 2008, Amber was recognized as one of the 20 emerging leaders in education technology by the National School Boards Association “20 to Watch” initiative and in 2016, she was recognized as a Kansas University, Woman of Distinction.