Dr. Jason Best is the Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness (and Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics) at Shepherd University, a public primarily undergraduate institution in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia.

Dr. Best was a member of the 2015-16 American Council on Education Fellows Class, and has served on the national Council on Undergraduate Research’s Task Force on Integrating Research into the Curriculum and on the National Advisory Committee for the PRAXIS Earth and Space Sciences Examination. He has also served on the National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences Committee of Visitors, as President of the West Virginia Academy of Science, as a voting member of the Shepherd University Board of Governors, and as Co-Chair of the university’s Strategic Planning Committee.

Dr. Best is a member of the Higher Learning Commission’s Peer Review Corps and the West Virginia Science and Research Council, and currently serves on the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Microcredential Advisory Committee, on the Shepherd University Foundation (as an officer and member of the Executive Committee), and as Shepherd’s HLC Accreditation Liaison Officer.