Diane Kelly-Riley researches issues of assessment and validity using empirical inquiries into local contexts or locally defined assessment tools, and examines dynamics and implications within instructional settings. She has published articles related to writing assessment, writing program administration, faculty development and the assessment of student learning outcomes for writing and critical thinking. She is former editor of Journal of Writing Assessment.

She leads the Company Town Legacy Project, which is an ongoing public and digital humanities project examining what happens to a company town when the company leaves.

She earned her doctorate in educational psychology from Washington State University. She lives with her family outside of Potlatch, Idaho.

• Writing assessment theory and practice
• Validity theory
• Learning outcomes
• Race and writing assessment
• Writing program administration
• Digital humanities/Multimodal composition

• Kelly-Riley, Diane, Ti Macklin and Carl Whithaus, editors. Considering Students, Teachers, and Writing Assessment: A Retrospective of the First Twenty Years of The Journal of Writing Assessment. WAC Clearinghouse. Forthcoming 2023.
• Kelly-Riley, Diane and Norbert Elliot, editors. Improving Outcomes: Disciplinary Writing, Local Assessment, and the Aim of Fairness, Research and Scholarship in Composition Series, Modern Language Association, 2021.
• Diane Kelly-Riley. “Considering Consequences in Writing Analytics: Humanistic Inquiry and Empirical Research in The Journal of Writing Assessment,” Journal of Writing Analytics, 2019, Vol. 2. Online.
• Diane Kelly-Riley. “Company Town Legacy: A Public Humanities Project Exploring Corporate Influences in Rural Idaho” part of “Public Humanities in Action,” MLA Profession, Summer 2019, online, https://profession.mla.org/public-humanities-in-action.
• Diane Kelly-Riley. “The Changing Landscape of Literacy Assessment and Accountability: Opportunities and Challenges,” (invited chapter) in Alice Horning and Ron Sudol, editors, Defining Literacy Standards: Essays on Assessment, Inclusion, Pedagogy, and Civic Engagement, Peter Lang, 2019.
• Diane Kelly-Riley. “A Case Study Exploring the Connections between Locally Defined Writing and Student Engagement: Toward a ‘Think Little’ Model for Assessment and Accountability,” WPA: Writing Program Administration. 41.1 Fall 2017. Print.
• Diane Kelly-Riley. “Common Core State Standards: A Policy Review for WPAs,” Invited article. WPA: Writing Program Administration, 40.2 Spring 2017. 193-220. Print.
  

Dr. Kelly-Riley is currently working on several projects:

• A project that considers the efforts to reduce remediation through the lens of rhetorical criticism.
• A project that looks at the connections between assessment, race, gender, and citation practices.
• Company Town Legacy, a public and digital humanities project exploring the corporate influence on a rural western town.

• Collaborator in an on-going project entitled First-Year Writing Across Idaho.
• Collaborator in an on-going project documenting what happened in the company town when the company left in Potlatch, Idaho.

• Recipient of the Pine Tree Award, Potlatch Historical Society, April 2019
• Recipient of a CLASS Faculty Research Fellowship, April 2017
• WPA Outstanding Scholarship, Honorable Mention, Council of Writing Program Administrators 2016, for “The WPA Outcomes Statement, Validation, and the Pursuit of Localism,” Assessing Writing 21.1 2014. 89-103. Print.
• Conference on College Composition and Communication Writing Program Certificate of Excellence, 2009.
• WSU Writing Program, US News and World Report, Writing in the Disciplines Academic Program to Look For List, 2002-2013
• Commendation for the WSU Writing Assessment Program from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, 1997 and 2004.
• Outstanding Mentor, WSU Women and Leadership Forum WSU, 2005.