Mary Kalantzis

Mary Kalantzis is Professor in the Department of Education, Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She also holds affiliations as a Faculty Affiliate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and as an Affiliate at the Siebel Center for Design. Her academic work spans multiple institutions, with significant research activities conducted in Australia prior to her current position.

Professor Kalantzis is a world leader in the 'new literacy studies,' focusing on multimodality and diversity in contemporary communications. Her research crosses disciplines including history, linguistics, education, and sociology, examining themes of immigration, education, ethnicity, gender, culture, leadership, workplace change, professional learning, training, pedagogy, and literacy learning. She has been instrumental in developing the Multiliteracies framework, a decade-long research initiative investigating the dual challenges for literacy teaching posed by cultural diversity and new communication technologies.

Her recent scholarly output shows a strong focus on artificial intelligence's impact on education, literacy, and communication. The 15 most recent publications reveal a consistent trajectory examining how AI technologies reshape learning environments, assessment practices, and literacy demands. Her work increasingly explores the intersection of multimodal communication, digital learning environments, and human-AI interaction in educational contexts.

Professor Kalantzis has received significant research funding throughout her career, including ten large and four small Australian Research Council grants. Her research activities in Australia involved management of or major participation in 116 research and development projects since 1991. She has collaborated extensively with Bill Cope on numerous publications and research initiatives.

She has developed innovative educational technologies including the Learning by Design Project (http://newlearningonline.com/learning-by-design/) and Scholar (http://learning.cgscholar.com/), an online multimodal student workspace supporting peer-to-peer feedback and formative assessment. Her teaching includes courses on machine learning and human learning, new media and learner differences, ubiquitous learning, and assessment for learning.