The Center for Educational and Technological Research (CERTI) announces Dr. Shantanu Tilak as new Director.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Chesapeake Bay Academy (CBA) leadership and the Center for Educational and Technological Research (CERTI) Advisory Council are pleased to announce Dr. Shantanu Tilak as the new Program Director of CERTI. Dr. Tilak recently completed his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at The Ohio State University and has published numerous research studies at the intersection of the fields of education, psychology, and computer science. He is known for using a cybernetic systems approach to facilitate interdisciplinary 21^st century research at the boundaries of different disciplines to understand human adaptation to a digital era.

Throughout its 35-year history, Chesapeake Bay Academy (CBA) has demonstrated an enduring commitment to innovation. CERTI was born out of an ongoing partnership between CBA, Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS), Old Dominion University (ODU), and Virginia Wesleyan University (VWU). With the addition of Dr. Tilak, The Ohio State University and Carnegie Mellon University now join the esteemed consortia through associations with Dr. Michael Glassman and Dr. Paul Pangaro and the American Society of Cybernetics, respectively.

CERTI was launched in January of 2021, in the midst of COVID-19, to study the impact of the many technology-based educational tools and interventions introduced at and beyond CBA during that period. Under the leadership of Dr. Tilak, CERTI will gather some of the country’s most skilled special educators, IT professionals, and curriculum designers to generate a research-base to better inform educators regarding what works best in the technology assisted classroom. The research center aims to shape the future of technology-assisted educational study and practice in Hampton Roads and beyond.

“Literally billions of dollars were spent over the course of the pandemic on largely untested technology-based products and services”, said Dr. Judy Jankowski, Head of School at CBA. “With Dr. Tilak at the helm of CERTI, the work will be aimed at assessing what technologies are most effective and how we deploy them to their greatest impact for all learners.”

Dr. Tilak says his new research will “focus on how neurodiverse students use information technologies to construct new knowledge and project-based artefacts at the collaborative and individual level.”

For more information about CERTI, please visit www.cba-va.org/CERTI or call 757.497.6200.

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