Associate Director, PARCC Assessment Technology  

Susan Van Gundy joined Achieve as the Associate Director for Assessment Technology in February 2012. Her work focuses on the development of technology strategies and implementation systems for the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), including issues related to technical architecture, technology-enhanced assessment items, and digital content to support instruction and teacher professional development.

Van Gundy is the former Director of Education and Strategic Partnerships for the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), where she provided vision and project leadership for national-scale cyberinfrastructure initiatives supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her activities at NSDL encompassed brokering collaborations among national and state-level stakeholders and leading community-wide strategic initiatives including the development of digital resource collections aligned to Common Core State Standards.  She originated the concept of Learning Resource Paradata, which lead to her appointment to the Technical Working Group of the Learning Registry, where Susan worked in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Defense on developing a technical system designed to improve the distribution and accessibility of digital learning content. 

Susan’s early career emphasized informal and authentic learning, including the integration of hands-on pedagogies, citizen-science, and distance learning opportunities into science museum experiences with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  Susan is a frequent conference speaker and serves on numerous advisory boards and review committees for a wide range of organizations focused on educational technology and science education.  She holds a B.S. in Geology from Oberlin College and an M.S. in Geosciences from The Pennsylvania State University.