Kay Shattuck was a member of the initial group of Maryland distance educators, who in the early 2000s, developed what would become the Quality Matters program.  As director of research for Quality Matters she continues to analyze and document research related to course design issues, specifically as they inform the Quality Matters Rubric^TM (see http://www.qmprogram.org/latest-research-support-rubric-standards).    She provides direction to QM in furthering research that is focused on online course design topics and on the effectiveness of the QM process.