Teacher Leader Programs

Nonie K. Lesaux, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development, is the interim dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Lesaux assumed the role of interim dean on July 1, 2024. She served as academic dean at HGSE from 2017 to 2021. She was previously named the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society before her appointment to the Larsen chair in 2021. A member of the HGSE faculty since 2003, Lesaux’s research focuses on strategies and innovations to improve learning opportunities and literacy outcomes for children and youth. Her teaching focuses on literacy development and reform, early learning, and leading system-level change. Lesaux works largely through partnerships with school districts, states, and communities. In school districts, Lesaux investigates language, reading, and social-emotional development; classroom quality and academic growth; and strategies to accelerate language and reading comprehension. In states and communities, she brings tools and concepts from improvement science to strengthen literacy plans and policy initiatives, grade-level reading campaigns, and birth-to-eight early learning initiatives. Her research-practice partnerships with large urban school districts, to improve literacy rates, include seven years with San Diego Unified and ten years with the New York City Department of Education.

Noah Heller is lecturer on education and a core faculty member in the Teacher and Teacher Leadership (TTL) program. He focuses on developing effective approaches to practice-based teacher education, teacher leadership and learning, and mathematics pedagogy. Additional research interests include identity and belonging in math classrooms and teacher action research. Throughout his education career, Heller has worked with teacher teams and underrepresented young people to break down barriers of access to math, math-related fields, and future education opportunities. He is currently the faculty chair for Professional Education's Certificate in Instructional Leadership, an online program to facilitate capacity building among teacher leaders. Prior to joining HGSE, Heller headed the Master Teacher Program at Math for America in New York City, where he directed the development and expansion of a professional development program for hundreds of experienced STEM master teachers. His previous university experience includes teaching at Pratt Institute and Hunter College. Heller was the founding math teacher at the New York Harbor School, a public Career and Technical Education high school where he had the privilege of wearing many hats including working closely with teachers, families, and college admissions offices directing the college access process for first generation college-going students. He teaches courses in math methods, teacher research, equity and opportunity and foundations in teaching and learning.

Pamela A. Mason, Ed.D. is a senior lecturer on education, a, co-chair of the Literacy and Languages concentration, and director of the Jeanne Chall Reading Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her professional and research interests encompass the role of culturally sustaining pedagogy in promoting literacy achievement, the interaction of text complexity and background knowledge, qualitative and quantitative literacy assessment, and the efficacy of the roles of reading specialists and literacy coaches. Mason has extensive experience as a reading/language arts curriculum coordinator, and she also was an effective elementary school principal, serving in both urban and suburban districts in the Boston area. Mason collaborates with colleagues nationally and globally on preparing reading specialist teachers and literacy coaches, developing the capacity of school leaders as literacy advocates, and evaluating school-wide literacy programs. Mason is active in the International Literacy Association, serving on the Assessment Task Force and in the National Council of Teachers of English, serving on the Standing Committee Against Censorship. She is also an active member of the Literacy Research Association and served on the Reading Standing Committee of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. She is a past president of the Massachusetts Association of College and University Reading Educators and the Massachusetts Reading Association. Mason is a member of the Board of Trustees for Cathedral High School (Boston), GrubStreet (a creative writing center), and the WGBH Educational Foundation, as a trustee emerita.