Alison A. Carr Chellman is currently the head of the Learning and Performance Systems department in the College of Education at the Pennsylvania State University. She earned her undergraduate in elementary education and taught school briefly before returning to school for her masters degree in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation both at Syracuse University. She worked at a tutoring center while in Syracuse, followed by work as a trainer of jet fighter pilots at McDonnell Douglas in Denver, CO. She subsequently returned to graduate school in Instructional Systems Technology with a focus on Educational Systems Design at Indiana University in Bloomington. This was the start of examinations of broad system-wide changes in schools and how to effect and sustain them. She became enmeshed in research and theories with a particular interest in the underserved and silenced among those engaged in school change and policy-making.

This led Ali to a position at Penn State in their Instructional Systems graduate program. Here, her own research focus remained on systemic change of schools and how technology can be used to increase innovation and the creation of learning environments. About this time, Ali had twin sons and a daughter just a year after. Her experiences in schools around her own children dramatically affected her current research efforts which are aimed at a deeper understanding of the experiences of boys in schools and how to re-engage them within a digital media learning framework. Her current research and teaching includes work with games in schools, both educational and commercial/entertainment. She is currently interested in the attitudes of teachers and parents toward gaming in the classroom and has a TED talk on the topic of using games to re-engage boys in their own schooling.