A forward thinker, Prof. Ralucca Gera is a leader in the classroom and research, with an education strategy focused on quality, effectiveness, and innovation in the learning experience as well as teaching experience. She supports personalized education through intentional learning strategies that emphasize excellence, exploration, and experimentation in the face to face or online environments. She empowers students to be confident learners by cultivating curiosity and inquiry, inspiring them to take ownership of their learning experiences.  

She is currently a Professor of Mathematics at the Naval Postgraduate School, and also serves as the Program Manager of the Academic Certificate in Network Science, the Director of CHUNK Learning project, at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS).  She is a researcher in the Center for Cyber Warfare at the Naval Postgraduate School, as well as an associate researcher in the Network Science Center at United States Military Academy.   Prof. Gera serves the larger education community as a consummate professional committed to innovation, change, and providing solutions. She teaches short courses for professors and researchers, organizes teachers' workshops such as the Networks in Classroom Education (NiCE) for elementary school teachers, and short courses for adult learners.   She is a distinguished alumna of Western Michigan University.

In 2014, Prof. Gera founded and is currently the director of the Academic Certificate in Network Science.  This is an interdisciplinary NPS academic program that introduces Navy, Marine Corps, Army, and Air Force officers to data analysis through the study of patterns of connections between objects, complementing AI/ML analysis of data.  

In 2018, Prof. Gera founded and co-lead the development of CHUNK Learning, to create an innovative, personalized, and adaptive learning platform. CHUNK Learning breaks away from the predictable pattern of traditional education models and provides content delivery that respects the different capabilities, learning styles, and approaches to problem-solving of every learner. Students are empowered by a system that ensures learning is efficient, flexible, and respectful of their time.  

In 2018, Prof. Ralucca Gera founded the Office of the Associate Provost For Graduate Education at the Naval Postgraduate School, and served as the first Associate Provost for Graduate Education (from 2018-2021) at the Naval Postgraduate School. The Office of the Associate Provost for Graduate Education is a team of visionary educators known for and dedicated to supporting revolutionary and impactful education. In this position, Prof Gera's main role is to inspire faculty and students to be leaders in classroom innovation, shaping the future of DoD Education to support fleet-responsive learning.  She thus focused on identifying education methodologies that guide the learner through educational experiences that adapting learning paths based on information captured about the learner, catering to the DoD officers and civilians of the 21st century.  Her office created classroom resources that promote best practices in teaching and learning that integrate technologies. She identified specific needs of the NPS teaching and learning community to ensure the right tools are available to successfully accomplish the NPS educational mission.

In 2018, Prof. Ralucca Gera founded the Teaching and Learning Commons, and became as the first Director of Teaching and Learning Commons (from 2018-2021).  The Teaching & Learning Commons as a community of practice enhancing the quality of NPS teaching and learning.  As the director, Prof. Gera brings together key stakeholders to support quality learning that drives the military forward by leveraging experiences of a community of educators supported by educational technology. The Teaching and Learning Commons unifies specialized services and resources offered by Teaching (OTL and CED3), Learning (Library, GWC and TPO), and Technology (ITACS) for faculty, students, and staff in support of the NPS academic mission. She constantly engage with faculty, students and staff through department visits, to provide quality, forward-thinking, and innovation in Teaching & Learning. 

From 2018-2020, she lead one of the 3 NPS themes for WSCUC 2020 accreditation, namely Classroom 2020, a program supporting classroom teaching and learning, including assessment.  Internal to the office of Associate Provost for Graduate Education, she supervises and fosters growth for the direct reports in the organization of the Associate Provost for Graduate Education. She leads by example, by created an integrated, engaged, and highly Navy relevant vision for her office.

From 2019-2020, she lead the Campus of the Future initiative that created of the first Flexible Learning Experience (FLEx) Spaces that respect the needs of a diverse faculty and student body; accessible, inclusive, and adaptable learning classroom environments.

In 2020, she lead the transition to Online teaching and learning during the pandemic, and the Distance Learning Quality Initiate (DLQi) that develops teaching resources and educational experiences that emphasize course quality and support cohesive learning experiences.

In 2021, she co-lead the Data Analytics Informing Teaching and Hybrid Learning (DAiTa HL) Initiative, building upon and integrating the results from the FLEx Spaces, DLQi, and COVID-19 efforts, the initiative to support hybrid courses experience to promote flexibility and improvements in learning experiences at academic program, certificate, and course levels.   

Additionally, in 2020, Prof. Gera joined the cyber cohort of AFVenture Fellows program (just for the year 2020) that connects the military's motivated innovators with leading venture capital firms and technology startups for an innovation immersion.  For this period of time, she worked with Shift on a framework for the career prep program that Shift provides for the Career Accelerator, as well as for the Defense Ventures.

In 2021, Prof. Gera served as the Senior Advisor to the Associate Provost for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, building on her leadership in that position as the Associate Provost for Graduate Education.  She leads the external partnerships within the  Provost offices within the Naval Education Enterprise, with the Teaching and Learning organizations across all DoD services, the lead for the support and collaboration for the US Navy Community College, and the liaison with different DoD and non DoD organization that support experiential learning/industry trips for NPS students.

In 2022, Prof. Gera lead the Campus of the Future research project at NPS, with the vision of creating an immersing the warfighter in meaningful, timely, and relevant learning, providing critical collaboration with experts in the field.  One effort supported the piloting of Athena, an online collaborative research discovery tool that connects students, researchers, sponsors, and leaders across the Naval Education Enterprise and Academic environment. A secondary focus was the scalability of digital classroom solutions for teaching and learning, providing equitable access to delivery of content, learning activities, meaningful feedback, and social learning opportunities complementing physical spaces. 

In 2023, Prof Gera created and is currently leading the Future of Learning project at NPS with the goal of cultivating an experiential education environment through facilitating meaningful engagement for educators and learners to deliver relevant learning that powers the mission! The focus is on an active partnership between NPS Students, Faculty, & Staff; ITACS; the Generative AI Task Force; and Microsoft under the CRADA, to facilitate a collaborative development platform that supports learning while delivering: (a) “The Galley” platform supporting learning by doing, and (b) a conversational Generative AI Search or NPS Enterprise Data, (c) creating a platform that supports this learn through development environment.

In 2023, Prof. Gera became the Education Lead for ASPIRE that aims to position federal agencies
to be competitive in recruiting & retaining employees with technical skills and artificial intelligence expertise. The research project proposes a platform that assess federal government talent, and automatically provides learning pathways to building individual competencies and support agile management of federal talent, especially in highly technical fields.

Prof. Gera's research interests are in graph theory and network science, with applications to the study of Educational Networks, Social Networks, the Internet, Cyber networks, Dark Networks, Natural Language Processing, and Personalized Education, sponsored by multiple DoD organization.  She has edited several books and published in prestigious mathematical and network science journals. She is active in professional service, including chairing conference program committees, organizing workshops, serving as journal editors, and has an Erdos-Bacon number of 4 (Erdos Number is 2, and a Bacon Number of 2).