Matthew Hora

Background

About Matthew Hora

I am currently a Professor in Adult and Higher Education in the Department of Liberal Arts and Applied Studies and the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and was the Founding Director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at UW-Madison. After several years of experience in organic agriculture and food systems research, I received my master's degree in applied anthropology from the University of Maryland - College Park. I then worked as a program evaluator of public health initiatives and STEM education initiatives before earning my Ph.D. in the learning sciences from the Department of Educational Psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012. My work focuses on discerning the cognitive, cultural, and contextual factors that inform instructor and student experiences in higher education settings - from classroom learning to work-based internships. Using theory and method from cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, and systems engineering, I have explored issues related to curriculum planning, classroom instruction, and data driven decision-making in postsecondary STEM departments. These perspectives are now being applied to the problem of education-workforce alignment, and the degree to which these complex factors can and should be considered when developing public policy regarding education and workforce development. In the future my work aims to incorporate these ideas and concerns in applied work focused on the climate emergency and intolerance/discrimination in our educational system and labor markets. My research utilizes a wide range of qualitative methodologies gleaned from a variety of disciplines, including grounded theory, decision modeling, scaling and data reduction techniques, and case study techniques, and also mixed-methods studies that incorporate primary survey data and qualitative information. My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Wisconsin System and UW-Madison since 2008 for over $10 million dollars.