Gwen C. Marchand is the Associate Dean of Research and Sponsored Projects in the College of Education and an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Higher Education. As the former Director of the UNLV Center for Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, she and her team conducted evaluations of interdisciplinary research centers and institutes using innovative methods. She has research expertise in academic motivation and engagement classroom systems, student mobility, collaborative team processes, and research and evaluation methods. Dr. Marchand has taught courses in advanced research methods, advanced quantitative analyses, and program evaluation methods. Her work has been published in top journal including Educational Psychologist, the Journal of Educational Psychology, and Contemporary Educational Psychology and she serves as an editorial board member for the Journal of Educational Psychology and Contemporary Educational Psychology. She is the co-editor of two methods-focused special issues, including one on mixed methods for Contemporary Educational Psychology, and one on complex systems approaches to educational research in Journal of Experimental Education. Dr. Marchand is currently the principal investigator on a collaborative National Science Foundation project.

She earned her Ph.D. in systems science: psychology from Portland State University in 2008 with an emphasis in human development, student motivation and engagement, and quantitative research methods. Her current research focuses on the motivational development of school-aged children and the social and personal factors that influence student engagement.