Dr. Karen Wixson, Professor Emeritus of Education, retired from active faculty status at the the University of Michigan's Marsal School in 2011.

Wixson received her bachelor of science degree in behavioral disabilities from the University of Wisconsin in 1972 and her master of science in education from SUNY-Binghamton in 1975. She earned her master's degree in reading education in 1978 and her doctor of philosophy degree in reading education in 1980, both from Syracuse University. Professor Wixson was appointed assistant professor at the University of Michigan in 1980, promoted to associate professor in 1985, and promoted to professor in 1991. She served as dean of the Marsal Family School of Education from 1998 to 2005.

Wixson has published widely in the areas of literacy curriculum, instruction, and assessment in books and journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Elementary School Journal, Review of Research in Education, and the Handbook of Reading Research. She is also an author on the Scott Foresman reading program and co-author of a popular text on the assessment and instruction of reading and writing problems.

Professor Wixson co-directed the federally funded Michigan English Language Arts Framework standards project, and served as co-director and principal investigator in the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA). She has been a long-time consultant to the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading tests, and recently served as a member of several National Research Council committees and as a member of the extended work group for the Common Core English-Language Arts Standards. She served as a member of the Board of Directors of both the National Reading Conference and the International Reading Association and is currently co-chair of the Reading Association's Commission on Response to Intervention.