The deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, who left the Department of Education last March in a nepotism scandal, has resurfaced at Columbia University Teachers College.

Diana Lam, who was the highest-ranking instructional official for the city’s public school system, was spotted last weekend at a conference in Chicago of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. On a flier distributed at the group’s first national conference, Ms. Lam was identified as “distinguished practitioner in residence” at the Columbia education school.

Ms. Lam has been affiliated with Columbia since last spring, according to a source at Teachers College. The position is unpaid and she does not teach any classes. Nor does she have a Columbia e-mail address, phone number, or office.

The source said she was recruited because of her knowledge of the public school system. Although the position might change and the arrangement might become more formal, Ms. Lam’s current role is mostly to advise the Teachers College’s president, Arthur Levine.

Ms. Lam left the city’s education department after the special commissioner of investigation, Richard Condon, released a report that found she took aggressive steps to get the department to hire her husband, Peter Plattes, without obtaining the required conflict-of interest clearance.

The report revealed that when the department was first asked about Mr. Plattes’s position, the department’s top lawyer, Chad Vignola, said Mr. Plattes was a “volunteer.” Actually, Mr. Plattes was to be paid $102,000 a year, though he had not yet received his first paycheck.

Ms. Lam and Mr. Vignola both resigned a few days after Mr. Condon released his report.

Last spring wasn’t the first time Ms. Lam has been touched by scandal.

She announced her candidacy for mayor of Boston in 1991, only to withdraw from the race days later when it turned out that she had filed tax returns late.

As an educator, she has won praise from many people for her leadership, but others have criticized her and her strategies.

At Providence, the teachers union held a no-confidence vote on Ms. Lam in the midst of a contract dispute, and black community leaders called for her to be removed.

When Ms. Lam was the schools superintendent of San Antonio, she won national recognition for raising test scores but then aroused opposition from teachers, parents, and the school board, and the board voted to buy out her contract with four years left.

Ms. Lam did not respond to attempts to reach her for this article. Mr. Levine declined to comment on her and her responsibilities.