Meghan J. Pifer
Professor and Chair
Meghan J. Pifer is Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Policy Studies & Evaluation Department at the University of Kentucky.
Prior to joining UK, Pifer was Chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Development at the University of Louisville. She previously served as the Co-Principal Investigator and Associate Director of the U. S. Department of the Army’s Master Educator Course. She was also the Co-Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the 2020 MEC Fellowship Program, a senior command seminar funded by U. S. Army Cadet Command. Pifer also served as an instructor at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State, and held faculty positions at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and Widener University.
Pifer holds a PhD in Higher Education from Penn State University and an EdM in Higher Education Administration from Boston University. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Pifer has over 20 years of experience studying and practicing higher education administration. Broadly, her research explores colleges and universities as organizational contexts, and the ways in which identity and individual characteristics, networks and relationships, and institutional structures and cultures within those contexts shape both individual and organizational outcomes.
One stream of her research focuses on faculty professional development and academic careers. This has included studies of doctoral education and preparation for the professoriate, faculty experiences within academic departments, and institutional approaches to supporting faculty work.
Another stream of her research addresses military-connected populations, including the role of education in transitions out of the military and into civilian careers, effective teaching and learning strategies for military-connected students, and existing and needed institutional and unit-level policies and practices for supporting this student population in higher education.
Her scholarship has been published in Innovative Higher Education, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, and Studies in Higher Education, among others. She has co-authored and co-edited several books, including Success After Tenure: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty, Developing Faculty in Liberal Arts Colleges: Aligning Individual Needs and Organizational Goals, and Mentoring Undergraduate Students: An ASHE Higher Education Report.