Crystal Donlan is a doctoral candidate in the Lifelong Learning and Adult Education program at the Pennsylvania State University, where her research focus lies in exploring the sociocultural and motivational aspects of online and distance learning. Crystal holds an M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology from Penn State University; she completed her undergraduate degree at Susquehanna University and prior graduate work at Bucknell University. In recent years Crystal served Elizabethtown College as the Instructional Designer and Online Learning Specialist in the Etown Teaching and Learning Design Studio and Albright College as the Senior Instructional Designer for Digital Learning and Innovation; she has also held academic and faculty roles at Luzerne County Community College, Lackawanna College, Alvernia University, and Penn State University.

Coping with the complexities of autoimmune disease, Crystal became interested in distance education and began exploring the remote facilitation of meaningful learning experiences in order to continue her life’s passion. In teaching across several disciplines and modalities, Crystal’s primary focus areas are the literacies – specifically information, digital, and media literacy – in higher education settings, and enhancing those literacies and other 21st century skills through self-paced, digitally scaffolded learning journeys. In preparing her dissertation, Crystal continues to study how these experiences enhance student competencies, influence transactional distance, and enrich the learning landscape; she hopes to continue exploring how literacy-based online initiatives may improve student outcomes in hybrid-delivery and distance learning settings.

An educator for over 20 years, Crystal has taught in K-12, correctional, community-based, and - most frequently - higher education settings, where she has facilitated face-to-face, hybrid, and online learning experiences. She initiated her original "mindful scaffolding" framework at the fall 2021 conference of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, and continues to present to both national and institutional audiences on the nuances of this framework for optimizing learner-centered environments through compassionate allowances, universal design, and equity of opportunity. Crystal has also been certified in secondary English instruction by the PDE since 2004, in 2020 became a National Geographic certified educator, and in 2021 became a QM certified higher education peer reviewer. She is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Clarity Learning Design, LLC, established in 2022.