Catherine A. Manly, PhD
Catherine is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the City University of New York Graduate Center and she teaches for Bay Path University. She earned her PhD in Higher Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a Research Affiliate with the UMass Center for Student Success Research.
Her professional experience includes working as Director of Educational Technology and Distance Learning at Manchester Community College in Connecticut and as an educational technologist at Amherst College. She was co-PI on a multi-year US Department of Education FIPSE Grant on Supporting Online Learners for the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium and has taught online, hybrid, and in-person courses for institutions in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Catherine brings a social justice lens to quantitative investigation of transformational innovation in postsecondary education. Her research aims to improve affordable postsecondary access and success for students underserved by traditional higher education, particularly through the changes possible because of online and educational technologies. Her dissertation investigated the effectiveness of using multiple modalities when presenting course content (one aspect of Universal Design for Learning) for improving student learning outcomes for nontraditional online students. Her research has studied issues of socioeconomic inequality, college financial planning, and the STEM college pipeline. She has investigated underserved and understudied student populations including students with disabilities, first-generation students, and rural students. She has also published on methodological issues associated with conducting high-quality quantitative research.
She has received awards for her work from the Northeastern Educational Research Association, as well as The College Board and the New England College Council. Her research has been published in journals such as Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Teachers College Record, and the Journal of Family and Economic Issues.
Catherine earned her BA magna cum laude in both astronomy and music from Amherst College, and her MBA in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix in a fully online program.