UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — With income inequality in the U.S. at a near all-time high, strategies on research and funding to reduce these inequalities will be discussed at an upcoming Penn State seminar.

Adam Gamoran, president of the W.T. Grant Foundation, will speak 4-5 p.m. on Feb. 22 in 110 Henderson Building, University Park campus, as part of the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center’s Spring 2017 Seminar Series.

Gamoran will explain the Foundation’s focus on reducing inequality and improving the use of evidence in policy decisions, and discuss the Foundation’s opportunities for research funding.

Gamoran provides leadership for the Foundation’s strategic direction and shapes its agenda and tactics. Since arriving at the Foundation, he launched a new initiative to support research on reducing inequality in youth outcomes, and has continued the Foundation’s ongoing work to improve the use of research evidence in policy and practice decisions that affect young people.

His research focuses on educational inequality and school reform and has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as well as by the Spencer and William T. Grant Foundations.

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was twice appointed by former U.S. President Obama to serve on the National Board for Education Sciences. He earned his doctorate in education from the University of Chicago in 1984.

Gamoran’s visit is being co-sponsored by the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center (College of Health and Human Development), and the Center for Educational Disparities Research (College of Education) and the Population Research Institute, both a part of the Social Science Research Institute.