Sharon Carver

Director

Bio

Sharon Carver, Ph.D., is beginning her thirty-first year as the Director of the Children's School. She earned an A.B. in Psychology and completed the K-12 Biology Teacher Certification Program at Princeton University and then earned a Ph.D. in child development at Carnegie Mellon. She taught in the Graduate School of Education and the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester for five years before returning to Carnegie Mellon.

Since coming to the Children's School, Sharon has worked with educators to strengthen our school's programs, integrate the school more fully into the university, and build strong connections between laboratory schools in Pittsburgh and beyond. In 2004, Dr. Carver was promoted to full teaching professor, and she was reappointed in 2008 and again in 2013. For 17 years, she was the Associate Training Director for the graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research (PIER), for which she taught the educational design core course until 2020. In 2019, Dr. Carver was appointed as the Associate Dean for Educational Affairs in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.  Nationally, she was a panel member for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Early Mathematics Practice Guide (2013), and she now serves on the Advisory Team for the “Bridging Research and Practice” features in Exchange Magazine for early childhood professionals.

Sharon’s husband, Dave, is pastor of the First United Presbyterian Church of Crafton Heights. Sharon enjoys photography, hospitality, boating on Pittsburgh's three rivers, and traveling. She also spends some of her free time in Southeastern Ohio with daughter Ariel, her partner Drew, and their daughters, Violet and Lucia, who will be turning 6 and 10 this fall.