The Clemson University College of Education welcomes a new faculty member in Spring 2026 who will assume a new, distinguished professor position in the College. Lesa Hoffman will serve as the Eugene T. Moore Distinguished Professor, bringing extensive experience in conducting research and evaluation using quantitative methods, which she hopes to apply to both Clemson University and the state of South Carolina as a whole.
Hoffman said she was drawn to the College because of the breadth, depth and interdisciplinary nature of the research conducted by its faculty and staff.
“The emphasis the Clemson community places on ensuring quality education for students at all levels and across all regions of the state is something I strongly support,” Hoffman said. “The chance to participate in building new and modern infrastructure for methodological activity and training is very exciting to me!”
In addition to expanding research resources for faculty, Hoffman hopes to expand quantitative training for the Clemson community so that students and colleagues have the most comprehensive “toolbox” for quantitative research approaches available to them.
Hoffman most recently served as a professor in the Psychological and Quantitative Foundations Department at the University of Iowa. She found her way to quantitative research through an undergraduate degree in psychology, where she came to understand the power of using statistical models to understand data related to human behavior. That connection was where she was “hooked.”
Hoffman finds the links between psychology and education to be essential in both directions. Research in psychology can provide an important starting point for understanding how cognitive processes develop and interact, while research in educational settings informs how those basic findings generalize across various settings, environments and individuals.
“Interdisciplinary research such as that being conducted at Clemson is becoming increasingly more common, so I am so excited to combine these worlds in my work at Clemson,” Hoffman said.
The application of Hoffman’s research in the social sciences has been incredibly varied – including biology degree pathways, epigenetics in autism and speech therapy, to name a few – and has often stemmed from leading the data analysis process (or mentoring students or postdoctoral scholars to do so). However, she has found more commonality than many would expect across topic areas. All researchers, for example, seek to create measures that are sufficiently sensitive across different respondents, yet as efficient as possible.
According to Kristin M. Gehsmann, dean of the College of Education, Hoffman will bring great capacity to teach and support programs and faculty on methodology in research. As a professor holding a title named for Eugene T. Moore, Gehsmann knows Hoffman will do this title justice by positively impacting the College and, by extension, the communities surrounding it.
“Dr. Hoffman brings extraordinary expertise in using data to solve complex human problems,” Gehsmann said. “Her work bridges disciplines and connects research to real-world impact, advancing the College’s mission to improve lives through education across South Carolina and beyond.”
Hoffman has earned extensive external funding support from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Institute of Education Sciences, totaling more than $10 million as a co-investigator and more than $900,000 as a training mentor or training coordinator on grants.
Her work has appeared in 95 peer-reviewed journal articles and been published in top-tier journals, as well as nine book chapters, seven technical reports and a sole-authored textbook (with a second edition under contract).
Hoffman earned a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in cognitive and quantitative psychology from the University of Kansas. She earned a bachelor’s degree with high distinction in psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
