Pamela A. Mason is director of the Language and Literacy Master's program and the Jeanne Chall Reading Lab and a senior lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her professional and research interests encompass the interaction of text complexity and background knowledge, the interaction of literacy learning, culture, and multilingualism, and school-wide literacy program implementation and evaluation, using qualitative and quantitative measures. She has extensive experience as a reading/language arts curriculum coordinator for several local school districts and as an elementary school principal. She is currently a member of the Juvenile Justice Education Research Initiative, investigating the education provided to incarcerated youth.
Mason is active in the International Literacy Association (formerly the International Reading Association), serving on the Literacy Reform Task Force and the Program Committee. She also co-edited Promising Practices for Urban Reading Instruction, an IRA publication. She is a past president of the Massachusetts Association of College and University Reading Educators and the Massachusetts Reading Association and served as the co-chair of the Studies and Research Committee. Mason is also an active member of the Literacy Research Association, serving on the Early Career Award and the Student Outstanding Research Award committees. She collaborates with colleagues nationally and internationally on preparing reading specialist teachers, implementing literacy coaching, developing school leaders, and evaluating school-wide literacy programs. Mason is a member of the Board of Trustees for Cathedral High School and the Board of Trustees of the WGBH Educational Foundation, as a trustee emerita.