People

William R. Penuel is professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Sciences in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research sits at the intersection of learning sciences and policy. He studies the design, implementation, efficacy, and sustainability of efforts to improve science and mathematics education. He has explored how participatory design, professional development, curriculum, and teachers’ collegial interactions support improvement efforts. Recent projects have examined the...

Dr. Briggs is professor of Research and Evaluation Methodology in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research agenda focuses upon building sound methodological approaches for the measurement and evaluation of growth in student learning. His daily agenda is to challenge conventional wisdom and methodological chicanery as they manifest themselves in educational research, policy and practice. He has a special interest in the use of learning...

Cynthia E. Coburn is professor at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She specializes in policy implementation, the relationship between research and practice, data use, and scale up of innovation. She has studied research use in schools and districts since 2002, including co-directing a six-year cross-case study of innovative approaches that reconfigured the relationship between research and practice for educational improvement (with Mary Kay Stein) and...

Heather C. Hill is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her primary work focuses on teacher and teaching quality and the effects of policies aimed at improving both. She is also known for developing instruments for measuring teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and the mathematical quality of instruction (MQI) within classrooms. She is co-director of the National Center for Teacher Effectiveness (NCTE) and principal investigator of...

James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He is also professor of Human Development and Social Policy, professor of Learning Sciences, professor of Management and Organizations, and faculty associate at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. Spillane has published extensively on issues of education policy, policy implementation, school reform, and...

Caitlin Farrell is director of the National Center of Research in Policy and Practice (NCRPP). She specializes in research on policy implementation and K–12 educational reform, with a particular focus on organizational theory. She uses qualitative methods to explore the links between educational policy and the conditions that foster successful reform, e.g., examining evidence use at the classroom, school, and system levels and the implementation and effects of alternate governance...

Anna-Ruth Allen is a research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research has focused on learning sciences, youth development, and understanding and supporting relationships between research and practice. She has conducted qualitative studies of learning in educational contexts in and out of schools, as well as research-practice partnerships in urban districts (with Bill Penuel, Cynthia Coburn, and Caitlin Farrell). She is co-editor of an NSSE volume on Design-Based...

Kristen Davidson is a research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on research-practice partnerships in education and community-based collaboration toward authentic family partnership in schools. She brings a theoretical foundation to qualitative and survey methods with central attention to advancing an equitable educational system. Kristen earned her PhD in Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dr. Lok-Sze Wong studies system reform policies as attempts to address systemic inequities. Drawing on education, sociocultural, and organization theories and mixed methods, her research unpacks how systems (re)produce inequities and how to humanely reform schools and districts as complex social systems. She focuses on professional learning opportunities that support teachers and administrators as they shift their practices while redesigning the very organizations in which they work. Dr. Wong began...

Eleanor Anderson is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of organizational theory, policy implementation, and teacher thinking. Broadly, her work uses qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the cognitive, social, organizational, and political processes that facilitate and undermine high-quality educational practice. More specifically, her dissertation work investigated the use of restorative justice practices in public high schools. Eleanor received her Ph.D. from in...

Debbie Kim is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. Her research interests are at the intersection of education policy and institutional theory. Using an institutional theory lens, she studies the ways macro-level processes take form at the micro-level. Currently, she is studying the ways ideas such as equity or accountability become packaged in policy, disseminated via policy messages, and shape practices at the local level. Debbie received her Ph.D. in...

Stephanie Brown is a postdoctoral research associate with the National Center for Research in Policy and Practice (NCRPP) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Stephanie’s research interests are rooted in her experience as an elementary teacher in Florida, and includes qualitative investigations of research practice partnerships in education, intermediary organizations, teacher policy and reform, and international and comparative education. Before joining NCRPP, Stephanie worked with the National Center on Scaling...

Chris Harrison is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. His research interests include the politics of education, practitioners’ use of student performance data, and district processes for implementing and scaling programs and practices. Before joining NCRPP, Chris worked with the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, where he conducted research and worked in partnership with a variety of practitioners as they developed educational innovations.​

Alice Huguet is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. Alice’s research interests are rooted in her experience as a middle school teacher in Los Angeles, and examine the social and organizational dynamics that influence policy implementation. Her research includes qualitative investigations of data-use practices, teacher evaluation programs, school leadership, and interorganizational relationships. Alice received her PhD in Urban Education Policy from the University of Southern California in 2015.

Corinne Herlihy is the director of research operations for the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR). She oversees the day-to-day operations of CEPR studies and the corresponding research agenda. Previously, Corinne was the project director for the National Center for Teacher Effectiveness (NCTE) at CEPR. She served as a primary liaison with the research team and the districts involved in the core study of developing measures of effective math teaching,...

Natalie Jou is a Project Coordinator at Northwestern University. In addition to coordinating several of PI Cynthia Coburn’s research projects, she works on data collection and analysis for NCRPP. Natalie is also a student in Northwestern’s Master’s in Higher Education Administration and Policy program and hopes to apply what she learns in the program toward becoming a more effective university employee. She is particularly interested in the impact of the...