Vanessa Renee Pitts Bannister

Vanessa Pitts Bannister, a native of Orlando, Florida, is the Department Chair of Secondary Education, Technology Education, and Foundations and a Professor and Coordinator of Mathematics Education in the College of Education at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). She completed an NSF-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley, a doctoral degree in mathematics education at the University of Pittsburgh, a master’s degree in mathematics at Bowling Green State University, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics education at South Carolina State University. She has published her research in internationally recognized and peer-reviewed indexed journals. Publication outlets include Teachers College Record, Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, Action in Teacher Education, and Mathematics Teaching in Middle Schools. Other outlets include chapters within an annual handbook and yearbook of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Her grant awards of more than $1.5M include federal, national, and state funding. Before her tenure at FAMU, she completed an NSF-funded study of pre-service secondary mathematics teachers’ interactions with reform curriculum materials in mathematics methods courses.  This line of work resulted in a co-edited book and other peer-reviewed publications. Her research interests include teacher and student knowledge in algebra and rational numbers, teachers’ pedagogical and content knowledge concerning curriculum materials, and equity and diversity issues in mathematics education.