Professional Biography
Ann Tiao has dedicated the majority of her adult life to teaching and mentoring others. She is currently the Assistant Dean for Student Services in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn GSE) where she has also taught for almost two decades. In her capacity as the leading advocate in the school for student success, she works to help students achieve academic success, foster student engagement, promote student wellness, and build systems to ensure the long-term support of student needs.
As a Senior Fellow in the Higher Education Division, Dr. Tiao has taught eight different classes over the course of her career, which are typically aimed at the scholar-practitioner, including co-teaching Diversity and Equity in the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management program. On the traditional program side, she currently teaches Diversity in Higher Education, which is the only course required for master’s students in the division; Contemporary Issues in Higher Education; and Building Inclusive Communities, which is a capstone course conceived and developed by Dr. Tiao to put students in a position to apply the theory and skills they have learned in other classes to real world concerns and problems. She regularly participates as a member of doctoral dissertation committees and occasionally chairs Ed.D. dissertations.
In addition to being a full-time administrator and part-time faculty member, Dr. Tiao also delivers workshops focusing on increasing access, promoting diversity, and building inclusive spaces to organizations in a variety of educational settings. Over the span of her career, she has taught hundreds of classes and workshops to thousands of students and professionals typically within the higher education or high-tech setting. More recently she has been working with K-12 independent schools and Penn GSE on understanding diversity and developing more inclusive classroom spaces.
Dr. Tiao has worked in numerous fields including high tech, engineering, statistics, and higher education, typically focusing on building new teams, programs, or systems utilizing data-driven research to foster continuing improvement. Dr. Tiao received a B.A. in Statistics from Kansas State University, a M.S. in Statistics from Texas A&M University, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Her doctoral dissertation was a qualitative study conducted at two higher education institutions to understand the factors that influence Asian American aspirations for graduate school and faculty positions, especially in the humanities and social sciences, and she received the William E. Arnold Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in a Doctoral Program. Dr. Tiao’s career started at Intel Corporation working in the largest cleanroom environment in the world at the time. She has received multiple awards for mentoring and service including Professional Mentor of the Year at Rowan University. Her long record of service at the university, community, and national levels includes serving on the executive committee of the James Brister Society at Penn, the KSU College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Council to the Dean, and the Board of Trustees at the KSU Foundation.