Lee Shulman, Stanford educational psychologist and educator, died on Dec. 30 at age 86.

Shulman’s research shaped modern understanding of knowledge, pedagogy, human development and the intersections between the three disciplines. His work in the fields of teaching, learning and educational leadership — including his development of the concept of pedagogical content knowledge — continue to influence educators worldwide.

Education professor Sam Wineburg Ph.D. ’90, a former doctoral student of Shulman’s, wrote to The Daily that Shulman was “warm, generous, and brilliant.”

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a philosophy professor at American Jewish University and visiting professor at UCLA School of Law, recalled to The Daily that Shulman served as a mentor to him twice, both at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin when Dorff was 12 and several decades later when Shulman invited Dorff to collaborate on a project on professional education. 

“I remember him even then as being both caring and outgoing. He also knew how to have fun,” Dorff said. He added that Shulman had “a wonderful sense of humor and laughed a lot with the many people whom he spurred to laugh along with him — never nasty, always warm and caring.”

Shulman was raised in Chicago as the only child of Jewish immigrants. After winning a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he studied philosophy and psychology, Shulman received an M.A. and Ph.D. in educational psychology from the same university. In 1963, Shulman joined the faculty at Michigan State University, where he founded and co-directed the Institute for Research on Teaching with the aim of better understanding teaching and learning processes. In 1982, Shulman joined Stanford as the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education.

At Stanford, Shulman researched and developed his concept of pedagogical content knowledge — the idea that effective teaching combines knowledge of subject matter with knowledge of teaching methods. Shulman also investigated signature pedagogies, or how professionals are trained for their professions. Further, Shulman considered education through the framework of teaching students how to think like professionals, perform like professionals and think and perform ethically.

Shulman’s work sparked a new research stage in teacher education and contributed to the creation of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In 1997, he retired from Stanford with emeritus status.

Wineburg wrote that Shulman offered both mentorship and a shoulder to lean on. “Hearing of my mother’s death, Lee did not send an email. He did not call. He did not send a card. Lee was the first person at the door of our Escondido Village apartment,” he wrote. “He helped me understand the deepest meaning of the word ‘advisor.’” 

In 1996, Shulman was appointed eighth president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an independent policy research center, where he served for eleven years. 

“I worked with Lee at the Carnegie Foundation for a dozen years and saw first-hand his amazing ability to rethink what education might look like and how it might be improved,” Pat Hutchings, Senior Associate and former Vice President at the Carnegie Foundation, wrote. “Like many others, I valued his intellectual and personal generosity, his sense of humor, his broad ranging interests, his energy and his amazing capacity for telling just the right story at just the right time.”

As an advocate for bettering Jewish education and studying the intersection of religion and education, Shulman also worked as an advisor to the Mandel Foundation in Jerusalem and a faculty member at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.

 “Lee Shulman was a guiding light for countless educators and teachers in Israel,” wrote Dr. Yaniv Goikhman, a family medicine attending physician at Clalit Health Services, an Israeli nonprofit healthcare provider.

Shulman received numerous awards throughout his career, including the Grawemeyer Award in Education in 2006 and the American Psychological Association’s E.L. Thorndike Award for Career Achievement in Educational Psychology in 1995.

Shulman was preceded in death by his wife, Judy Horwitz Shulman, a scholar and founder of the Institute for Case Development in Education. He is survived by his children, Allen Shulman, Dina Shulman and Dan Shulman, as well as his grandchildren, Joey Shulman, Jordy Shulman, Becky Shulman, Sarah Shulman and Sam Shulman.

“Lee was not only smart and wise; he was also warm, outgoing, funny, and caring,” Dorff said, “He leaves behind a legacy of taking the whole process of education seriously, including the training of future educators in all fields. He also leaves behind a model of what it means to be a really bright but also humble, caring and funny human being.”