Dr. Stephen Balfour is the director of the Office of Online Learning (UGA Online) and a Senior Academic Professional at the University of Georgia.
As the director of UGA Online, he provides strategic guidance for online learning at the University of Georgia as well as oversees and consults on instructional design, marketing, regulatory compliance, and media production. He has collaborated with colleges, schools, departments, and programs to help with various aspects of UGA’s Master of Social Work Online, Masters of Comparative Biomedical Science Online, Online Master of Business Administration, and Online Master of Public Health, amongst other online graduate degrees and certificates. He represents UGA on the Regents Advisory Committee on Distance Education which he chairs, and represents UGA on the Regents Advisory Committee for Adult Learning.
Dr. Balfour has published five peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, given more than 30 invited talks on pedagogy and technology, and been cited in popular media several times. In his early career, his research was focused on the psychological underpinnings of rites of initiation, and, consequently, he worked with producers for three different reality TV programs on communicating the science of identity formation to their audiences. The common thread throughout his career has been the psychology of learning and metacognition, whether it was in enculturation or in higher education.
He earned his doctorate in cognitive psychology from Texas A&M University in 1998. Dr. Balfour has been the principal investigator (PI) on two Department of Defense (DoD) technology enhanced language learning contracts involving AI and co-PI on three DoD contracts for open-source media analysis totaling over $900,000.
Office: 247 Brooks Hall
Phone: 706-542-2393
Email: [email protected]
