Public scholarship is a major component of my academic work. Bridging theory and practice – what is oftentimes referred to as translational research, the scholarship of engagement, or public work – is a critical component of linking academic work and public practice. My public scholarship – which includes blogging and writings in general audience publications – is viewed by 100,000+ readers. I have been interviewed in national and international media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, the BBC and Forbes magazine and have served on national task forces for MIT, AAC&U, the US Department of Education, NSF, and the Carnegie Corporation. I have been honored six years in a row as one of the top two hundred “Public Edu-Scholars” in Rick Hess’s Influence Rankings. As Hess writes on his EdWeek blog, the list is meant to honor and rank “the 200 university-based education scholars who had the biggest influence on the nation's education discourse last year…[The] rankings reflect, in roughly equal parts, the influence of a scholar's academic scholarship, on the one hand, and their influence on public debate as reflected in old and new media, on the other” and provide a “sense of a scholar's public footprint in the past year.”