Elizabeth Barker began her career in education as a middle school and elementary special education teacher, specifically of students with mild-to-moderate disabilities in Michigan and Colorado. She received her doctoral degree with an emphasis on growth trajectories for students with learning disabilities in mathematics and reading comprehension from the University of Oregon. Her current research focuses on how growth trajectories vary among students with visual impairments, deafness and hearing loss, and other disabilities.

Helena Connolly is a learning scientist whose research focuses on math and science learning, non-routine problem solving, motivation, and teacher adaptivity. Helena primarily conducts experimental and mixed methods research with K-12 students and teachers. As a former elementary school teacher, Helena seeks to understand various pedagogical approaches and how they affect individual learners. Prior to joining NWEA, Helena explored these questions as a research fellow at the Institute for Learning Technologies at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned a PhD in cognitive science in education.

Michael Dahlin leads NWEA’s Reporting & Data Analytics team. He specializes in research and reporting on college readiness and school accountability policy. Before joining NWEA, he was a research analyst for the Oregon Department of Human Services. He holds a PhD in developmental psychology from Penn State.

Miles Davison specializes in using quantitative and mixed-methodologies to examine how K-12 intervention policies and programs impact equity in schools.

Broadly, Michael Gaddis’s work provides evidence of inequality in the US related to race/ethnicity, social class, and education. He studies educational inequality across five dimensions: (1) the effects of educational credentials on important life outcomes, including employment and health; (2) when and how educational credentials attenuate or exacerbate racial/ethnic discrimination; (3) intergenerational mobility as it relates to the direct and indirect effects of educational attainment across generations; (4) differences in students’ mental health and campus-level stigma across college and universities and the subsequent impact on academic achievement and attainment; and (5) racial/ethnic and SES inequalities in cultural capital and social capital and their effects on academic achievement and attainment among K–12 students. 

Ayesha K. Hashim uses interdisciplinary and mixed-methods research designs to study the impacts of district-level school policies on student learning, and the leadership, organizational, and implementation conditions that can explain observed results.

Andrew Hegedus consulted with education system leaders around the world; prototyped, launched, and supported state-of-the-art reports; and managed research projects focused on understanding the drivers for growth in schools with differing levels of challenges.

Ann Hu works mainly on MAP Growth assessments. Her research interests include linking studies between formative and summative assessments, item bank development and maintenance, adaptive testing engines, test security, and norms studies. She has extensive experience in conducting psychometric analyses and research based on Rasch models and IRT, constructing fixed forms and CATs, and designing and conducting standard settings. Prior to joining NWEA in 2017, Dr. Hu worked at Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) on multiple large-scale achievement testing programs for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, and Minnesota. Dr. Hu holds a doctorate in measurement, evaluation, and cognition from the University of Alberta. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a MEd in educational psychology.

Nate Jensen specializes in issues related to the use of student testing data in accountability systems and its application to myriad policy decisions.

Danny Katz is a research scientist focusing on the philosophy of measurement, ontology, and psychometrics. He is interested in methods for improving measurement claims in educational settings as well as using ideas from the philosophies of science and language to understand how we conceptualize what might be measurable in the human sciences. He hopes to do more work connecting educational measurement, psychometrics, and education policy. He has worked and published in areas related to test fairness, adolescent literacy, university-level biology education, and program evaluation. He is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Jungnam Kim leads the psychometric work for the Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS). Her research interests include equating, vertical scaling, and adaptive testing. Prior to joining NWEA in 2017, Dr. Kim worked at CTB/McGraw-Hill for over eight years, where she served as lead research scientist for various state assessment programs including the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Tests, Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, North Dakota State Assessments, Colorado Alternate Assessment, and Tests of Adult Basic Education. Dr. Kim holds a PhD in educational measurement from the University of Iowa.

G. Gage Kingsbury provides advice and development work in the application of technology to practical assessment situations. He designed the first adaptive tests used in educational settings and helped design adaptive tests currently administered to K–12 students throughout the United States and in a wide variety of international schools.

Susan Kowalski began her career in science education teaching high school physics and physical science in Bloomington, MN. She completed her PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Minnesota and the spent several years developing and researching curricula and professional learning experiences at BSCS Science Learning. Her current work investigates new approaches to three-dimensional assessment in support of the Next Generation Science Standards. She is focused on how teachers might learn to more effectively use assessment data to inform their day-to-day science instruction and enhance equitable learning opportunities for students.

Megan Kuhfeld seeks to understand students’ trajectories of academic and social-emotional learning and the school and neighborhood influences that promote optimal growth.

Kat’s research interests include authentic, phenomenon-based learning experiences in science classrooms. She is especially interested in developing and using learning progressions to support and assess students’ competence with scientific practices, such as modeling and explaining scientific phenomena. Kat completed her PhD in chemistry and MA in educational measurement and statistics at the University of Iowa. Prior to joining NWEA, Kat worked in discipline-based education research, primarily in chemistry contexts, at San Diego State University and the University of Iowa.

Karyn Lewis is director of the Center for School and Student Progress at NWEA where she leads a team of researchers who operate at the intersection of K-12 education research, practice, and policy.

Xueming (Sylvia) Li focuses on psychometric issues related to MAP Growth. Her research interests include computer-based testing, applications of IRT, test validity, cross-cultural assessment, and test score linking and equating. Prior to joining NWEA in 2015, she received a doctoral degree in research, educational measurement, and psychometrics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Tyler Matta is motived to improve the tools used for educational decision making to support the building of equitable educational systems. His work spans computational psychometrics, learning theory, and education policy.

Andrew McEachin’s work focuses on helping policymakers and educators make informed decisions about the design and implementation of educational policies, so that data and policies may better support student learning and more equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students.

Patrick Meyer manages the team of psychometricians, statistical analysts, and project managers involved in the district division of NWEA. This team conducts psychometric research for assessments such as MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency. His research interests include IRT, psychometric software design, and the psychometric characteristics of teaching measures. Dr. Meyer is the inventor and lead developer of jMetrik, an open-source software program used in over 20 countries. He has authored two books and published over 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Educational Measurement, Applied Psychological Measurement, and Educational and Psychological Measurement. He has conducted 25 standard-setting workshops in the licensure and certification field, as well as numerous workshops on psychometric theory and the use of jMetrik for data analysis. Prior to joining NWEA in 2018, Dr. Meyer worked as an associate professor with tenure in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, where he taught courses in educational measurement and applied statistics. He began his academic career in 2004 as an assistant professor at James Madison University’s Center for Assessment and Research Studies. Dr. Meyer holds a PhD in educational psychology and research from the University of South Carolina.

Colleen Oppenzato’s research focuses on how students develop mathematical thinking, from early childhood through the middle grades. Her specific interests include children’s understanding of rational numbers, how textbook input affects student learning, and how to measure teachers’ math pedagogical content knowledge. She is currently completing her PhD in cognitive science in education at Teachers College. Prior to joining NWEA, Colleen worked as an elementary school and middle school special education teacher and then as a math curriculum developer, editor, and project manager. She was also an affiliate with the Development and Research in Early Math Education (DREME) Network, where she created materials for teacher educators and for family math activities.

Fang Peng works with the MAP Reading Fluency assessment. Among her interests and areas of expertise are computerized adaptive testing, measurement validity, early childhood development, and applications of natural language processing and machine learning in assessment contexts. Prior to joining NWEA in 2022, Fang worked as a psychometrician at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing where she gained extensive operational and research experience in large-scale licensure examinations. Fang holds a PhD in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Scott J. Peters specializes in educational assessment and data use, gifted and talented student identification, equity within advanced educational opportunities, and effectiveness of educational policy.

Alexis Prijoles specializes in developing processes for data management. Before joining NWEA, she was a research specialist at the University of Virginia. She holds a BS in mathematical sciences from Clemson University and an MEd in Educational Psychology – Research, Statistics, and Evaluation from the University of Virginia.

Erik Ruzek’s research focuses on how classroom and school processes shape student engagement, motivation, and learning. As an educational psychologist, his work emphasizes the measurement of students’ subjective experiences of their classrooms and school.  He combines student-reported experiential data with classroom observations, teacher reports, and direct assessments to identify the essential features of teacher-student and student-peer interactions that engage and motivate students. 

James Soland’s research focuses on assessment and evaluation policy and practice. Particular areas of emphasis include measuring social-emotional learning (SEL), test engagement, and estimating teacher and school effectiveness.

Yon Soo Suh’s interests lie in developing and applying quantitative methods to promote more accurate modeling, interpretation, and use of educational data in assessment settings and empirical research. She specializes in latent variable modeling with a focus on understanding fine-grained psychological and cognitive processes underlying various response data. Prior to joining NWEA, Yon Soo worked with institutions such as the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, PBS Kids, and the Korean Institution of Curriculum and Education while at UCLA CRESST. Her projects included psychometric analyses of large-scale assessment data, analysis of telemetry data from digital educational games, and scale development and validation. Yon Soo holds a PhD in education, focused on quantitative methods, and a master’s degree in statistics from the University of California, Los Angeles. She also received a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature, along with a national teaching certificate for English, from Yonsei University in South Korea.

Beth Tarasawa is relentlessly committed to using data-driven insights to transform education and eliminate structural barriers to achieve equitable outcomes for all students.