It is with profound sadness that we must inform visitors to this page that Andrew Minigan, our esteemed friend and colleague at the Right Question Institute, died on September 19, 2020, after complications with a pulmonary embolism. He was 29 and days away from officially submitting his completed doctoral dissertation. You may read his obituary here.
Andrew was part of the heart and soul of the Right Question Institute and a critical member of our team. He brought a love of learning, curiosity, questioning, and research to students and educators around the world. In 2022 he was awarded a doctorate in education, posthumously, by Northeastern University. We will be working to honor Andrew’s incredible contribution to RQI and the field of education, and we have also established the Andrew Minigan Memorial Fund to advance work close to his heart.
Below is his professional biography.
Andrew P. Minigan is the Right Question Institute’s (RQI) director of strategy. He facilitates active learning experiences for educators, faculty, researchers, and students in both K-12 and higher education, and he has worked with thousands of learners from around the world.
Andrew conducts research and consults on other researchers’ empirical work, and he also designs new learning experiences and curricula to support educators, researchers, and learners. He is a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded research grant to develop a strategy so researchers can learn how to formulate better, more transformative research questions. He is also a principal investigator, with Sarah Westbrook, on a Library of Congress grant that will provide learning opportunities for educators around the country, especially those working with traditionally underrepresented students, so they may learn a strategy to facilitate more effective student-driven inquiry on primary sources.
From 2015-2018 Andrew led RQI’s Million Classrooms Campaign (supported with funding from the John Templeton Foundation). By learning with educators in the field, he scaled a pedagogical innovation on a global level. Now, students across all grade levels around the world are improving their own question formulation skills with a powerful yet simple strategy.
Andrew conferred an Ed.M. in human development and psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in psychology from the University of New Hampshire. In 2022 he was awarded a doctorate in education, posthumously, from the Northeastern University Graduate School of Education.