Philip Uri Treisman

Executive Director

Philip Uri Treisman is professor of mathematics and of public affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is the founder and executive director of the University's Charles A. Dana Center, an organized research unit of the College of Natural Sciences. His research and professional interests include education policy, mathematics and science education, and community service and volunteerism.

Professor Treisman has received numerous honors and awards for his efforts to strengthen American education. For his research at the University of California at Berkeley on the factors that support high achievement among minority students in mathematics, he received the 1987 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in American Higher Education. In 1992, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. In December 1999, he was named as one of the outstanding leaders in higher education in the 20th century by the magazine Black Issues in Higher Education. In February 2006, he was named "2006 Scientist of the Year" by the Harvard Foundation of Harvard University for his outstanding contributions to mathematics.

Professor Treisman is actively engaged in designing programs that strengthen the teaching and learning of mathematics and science from elementary to graduate school. He serves on the Carnegie–Institute for Advanced Study Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, launched in 2007. He has served on the National Academy of Sciences Mathematical Sciences Education Board and on its Coordinating Council for Mathematics, Science and Engineering Education. He now serves on the Leadership Team of the Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP), a nonprofit organization created by the National Academy of Sciences whose mission is to create new knowledge to solve urgent problems of American education. Treisman chairs the design teams of two SERP laboratories, one focused on academic language development in the middle school years, and the other on strategies for engaging students in rigorous mathematics instruction in schools serving ethnically diverse populations.

Professor Treisman is a founder and chair of the steering committee of the Urban Mathematics Leadership Network, a coalition of 15 large urban districts seeking to improve prekindergarten–12 mathematics teaching and learning. From 2003 to 2006, he chaired the New York City Chancellor’s Mathematics Advisory Panel. From 1995 to 2004, he served as president of the board of the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications. He has also served on the College Board's Commission on the Future of the Advanced Placement Program and on numerous College Board committees and commissions concerned with equity and mathematics achievement.

He is a founding board member of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education and has served on the policy and priorities committee of the Education Commission of the States. He was a founding board member of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), an award-winning program that nurtures students’ high academic achievement and college-going aspirations.

Professor Treisman is an active member of several advisory boards and working groups concerned with increasing the rigor of secondary mathematics and science education. He serves on the advisory board of a new partnership of Achieve, the National Governors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers focused on ensuring that states are benchmarking their education policies and practices against best practices globally.He serves on the board of the New Teacher Project.

Professor Treisman served as a founding member of the Texas Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service. He was appointed to the Commission by Texas Governor Ann Richards in 1994 and was reappointed by Governor George W. Bush in 1996. He served also as the first vice president of the Texas Foundation for Volunteerism and Community Service.

Professor Treisman is especially proud of his service on the National Advisory Committee of the Military Child Education Coalition (MCEC). He served as chief juror on the Department of Defense Secondary Education Transition Study, which examined the effects of high mobility in military families on the education of their children. He served as a juror on a U.S. Pacific Command Study of The Transition of Children in Military Families into and from the Hawaii Public Schools. He is currently serving on the Science Advisory Board of MCEC’s Living in the New Normal Initiative, which is charged with developing effective strategies for addressing the stressors related to the deployment of a parent and the trauma associated with a parent’s illness, injury, or death.

Professor Treisman received a B.S. (summa cum laude) in Mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. Leon Henkin was his doctoral advisor and is the model for his professional career. In all his work, he is an advocate for equity and excellence in education for all children.

Selected Publications

Philip Uri Treisman and Stephanie A. Surles. (2001). "Systemic reform and minority student high achievement." In The right thing to do, the smart thing to do: Enhancing diversity in the health professions in honor of Herbert W. Nickens, M.D. (pp. 260-280). Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, National Academy of Sciences. Available on the NAP website.

Philip Uri Treisman and Edward J. Fuller. (2001). Comment on "Searching for indirect effects of statewide reforms." In Diane Ravitch (Ed.), Brookings papers on education policy: 2001 (pp. 208-218). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Joseph F. Johnson, Jr., Ed Fuller, and Philip Uri Treisman. (December 2000). Testing in Texas. The School Administrator, 20-26. Available on the American Association of School Administrators website.

Celeste D. Alexander, Timothy J. Gronberg, Dennis W. Jansen, Harrison Keller, Lori L. Taylor, and Philip Uri Treisman. (2000). A study of uncontrollable variations in the costs of Texas public education. Austin: Charles A. Dana Center.

College Board and the Charles A. Dana Center. (1998). Advanced Placement Program? Mathematics Vertical Teams Toolkit. Austin: College Board.

Charles A. Dana Center. (1998). Increasing enrollment, retention, and graduation in Texas public higher education: Four studies for the Texas Senate Education Committee. Austin: Charles A. Dana Center.

Rose Asera and Uri Treisman. (1995). Routes to mathematics for African-American, Latino and Native American students in the 1990s: The educational trajectories of Summer Mathematics Institute participants. In Naomi D. Fisher, Harvey B. Keynes, and Phillip D. Wagreich (Eds.), Changing the culture: Mathematics in the research community; issues in mathematics education, Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (pp. 127-150). Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, Mathematical Association of America.

Uri Treisman. (1992). Studying students studying calculus: A look at the lives of minority mathematicians (pdf 1.5mb). A Mary P. Dolciani Lecture. College Mathematics Journal, 23, 362-372.

Robert E. Fullilove and Philip Uri Treisman. (1990). Mathematics achievement among African American undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley: An evaluation of the Mathematics Workshop Program. Journal of Negro Education, 59, 463-478.

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