Mary B. Shoffner, Ph.D.

Mary Shoffner is an instructional designer for the Digital Education Team, where she uses her many years of instructional design and online learning experience in higher education to create online learning content for Penn State Extension. Mary works with Extension educators to design online courses and write course content, videos, and student assessments. She also coordinates with team members to develop learning design best practices. 

Before joining the Digital Education Team, Mary had a long career as an associate professor of learning technologies at Georgia State University, teaching undergraduate and graduate students and conducting research in the areas of instructional design, online learning, adult learning, innovation and change, performance technology, visual design for learning, and teacher education.  

Mary has a Bachelor of Science degree in microbiology and a Master of Science degree in instructional systems from Penn State. Mary also has a Ph.D. in educational psychology with an emphasis in instructional technology and a minor in adult learning and higher education administration from Kent State University.