Welcome

Thank you for browsing my personal website. I am a Principal Researcher at American Institutes for Research (AIR) based in Washington, DC. I am a methodologist with a passion for approachable and applicable quantitative methodologies. I attended Loyola University Chicago through 2013, receiving my Ph.D., and then I participated in an Institute of Education Science (IES) Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Peabody Research Institute within Vanderbilt University until 2015. Following the Postdoctoral Fellowship, I worked at Development Services Group, Inc. as a Senior Research Scientist. In the fall of 2017 I joined AIR.

My research interests intersect education, psychology, and criminology - broadly, I'm a social science researcher and methodologist.

But my passion is to improve the methods of research synthesis. We've come a long way in the last 40-ish years since a few academics revolutionized the industry. To think we have it all figured out is simply shortsighted: we have a lot more to streamline and get right. That's why my work focuses on improving research synthesis broadly. My largest current role, as Project Director for IES' What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Statistics, Website, and Training (SWAT) contract, serves this focus. Our goal is to help IES develop better and more efficient standards and processes to synthesize education programs, practices, and policies. Through this work, I'm able to help our large AIR staff and several subcontractors to think about how best to disseminate the WWC's work, train future WWC reviewers, and improve and update what is considered a high-quality research design. It's an expansive project - but one with the potential to make lasting, wide-ranging impacts.

Although that contract represents my largest time commitment, it is far from my only current project. I have ongoing systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the longitudinal relations between school violence and mental health and school performance, the effectiveness of programming to reduce cyberbullying, and the effects of college aid funding on student success. I'm also fortunate to serve as Co-Principal Investigator of two awards to train future meta-analysts: the meta-analysis training institute and the modern meta-analysis research institute. In the past few years, I've also worked to reduce publication bias, increase data sharing, and further the mission of research transparency - all in the spirit of improving the conduct of meta-analysis.

And of course, in the past, I've served several methodologist roles. I helped to lead the design and analysis of a large-scale cluster-randomized trial impact evaluation. I've consulted on research projects that use longitudinal observational data and these have lead to a few interesting analyses. If you look closely at my CV, you will see I do some applied measurement analyses like exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis. My substantive interests mainly involve the prevention of school violence and problem behaviors. I believe we have an obligation to try to prevent school bullying, increase positive bystander behaviors (in children, teachers, administrators, and parents), and improve academic success. These issues lend themselves to a variety of areas using traditional educational research but include the use of crime and justice and social work research.

Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or random thoughts.