The White House has announced that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Walter Secada, professor and senior associate dean at the University of Miami’s School of Education and Human Development, to a key administration post within the federal government.

Secada will be nominated as a member to the Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. He was among six individuals appointed by President Obama to key administrative posts.

In a White House press release, President Obama said of the nominees: “I am grateful these accomplished men and women have agreed to join this Administration, and I’m confident they will serve ably in these important roles. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”

Secada is a professor of teaching and learning and the senior associate dean of the School of Education and Human Development. From 1985 to 2003 he held numerous positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including professor of curriculum and instruction and director of the Diversity in Mathematics Education Program at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. From 1995 to 1996, Secada was the director of the Hispanic Dropout Project at the U.S. Department of Education.

He is a member of the National Association for Bilingual Education, the Fulbright Association, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the American Educational Research Association. As a Fulbright Fellow, Secada was a consultant to the Universidad Catolica San Pablo in Peru. He earned a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by the United States Congress in 1986 in honor of former United States Senator and 1964 Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). Its goal is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.