With a doctoral degree in curriculum and instruction and concentration on instructional design and educational technology, Dr Gao has over 25 years’ experience in higher education, both in China and USA, as faculty, instructional designer, LMS manager, and online education administrator.

Dr Gao believes quality course and program design supported by research and institutional resources facilitates effective instruction, promotes student engagement and active learning, lays the foundation for student success, and supports institutional accreditation and advancement.

Since the COVID pandemic started, Dr Gao has been invited to give keynotes, featured speeches, presentations, webinars, panel sessions, and workshops for higher education communities at dozens of international conferences and events hosted by many countries on topics relating to remote teaching, online education, digital learning, academic integrity, student engagement, best practices in online teaching, assessment redesign for online courses, and quality assurance, among others.

In her current position as Senior Academic Director of Member Services and Partnerships at Quality Matters (QM), USA, Dr. Gao leads and oversees QM’s member services for 1500+ member institutions globally, and leads external collaborations and partnerships.

Dr. Gao earned her doctoral degree from Baylor University, Texas, USA, and her Master and Bachelor degrees from Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.