November 2026

It is with profound sadness and a very heavy heart that I share the devastating news that our dear colleague and friend, Dr. Mark Gierl, passed away surrounded by his family.

For nearly three decades, Mark was an extraordinary presence in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. An internationally renowned scholar, a gifted teacher and mentor, a generous colleague, and a cherished friend to so many, Mark leaves a remarkable legacy that extends far beyond the University of Alberta. His passing is an immeasurable loss to the field of educational measurement and to the many people whose lives and careers he touched.

Mark joined the University of Alberta in 1997 and went on to establish himself as one of the world’s leading scholars in educational and psychological measurement. As a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Educational Measurement, his research transformed approaches to assessment, particularly through his groundbreaking work in automatic item generation, cognitive diagnostic assessment, and the application of technology to educational testing. His scholarship was distinguished not only by its intellectual rigour and innovation, but also by its reach and influence, shaping assessment research and practice internationally.

Over the course of his remarkable career, Mark received numerous prestigious honours recognizing his scholarly excellence, including awards from the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education, the University of Alberta’s Martha Cook Piper Research Prize, and a Killam Annual Professorship. These distinctions speak to the extraordinary esteem in which he was held by his peers and to the lasting significance of his contributions.

Yet to speak only of Mark’s scholarly achievements would be to tell only part of his story.

Mark was deeply committed to his students and to the development of the next generation of scholars. Through his teaching, supervision, mentorship, and leadership in both the Measurement, Evaluation, and Data Science program area and the Centre for Research in Applied Measurement and Evaluation, he helped build a vibrant scholarly community and supported students and colleagues who have gone on to make important contributions of their own. His influence will continue through their work, through the relationships he cultivated, and through the many opportunities he created for others to learn, grow, and flourish.

For those of us fortunate enough to know Mark as a colleague and friend, this loss is especially difficult. Beyond his extraordinary accomplishments, Mark was someone who gave so much of himself to the intellectual and collegial life of our field. His presence, his contributions, his care, and the relationships he built over so many years have helped shape our field into what it is today. There is simply no way to measure the fullness of that legacy or the depth of his loss.

I know this news will be profoundly difficult for many in our community, particularly those who worked closely with Mark, learned from him, and counted him as a friend. His passing reminds us that, for all the significance of the work we do as scholars and educators, it is the people with whom we share that work, and the relationships we build along the way, that matter most.

We will miss Mark terribly. We will remember him with profound gratitude, admiration, and affection. And we will carry his legacy forward through our work and in the lives of those he inspired.

A message shared from Dr. Man-Wai Chu