Accelerate improvement in the quality of and equity in educational experiences for K-20 students in and outside the classroom.
Strengthen decision-making by education leaders, practitioners, and policy makers through the use of evaluative inquiry, field knowledge, and improvement science approaches.
Our Team
Jennifer Iriti
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Education and Evaluation Strategy - Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research
Associate Director of Applied Practice & Partnerships for the Learning Research and Development Center
Research Scientist- Learning Research and Development Center
Jennifer Iriti spearheads work at the intersections of evaluation, design thinking, equitable systems, and learning sciences. She heads two applied research teams, which focus on PK-20 education and learning beyond the classroom. Her 25-year career has significantly impacted educational design and policy both locally and nationally, emphasizing decision-maker and user-centric evaluation designs and fostering partnerships that drive improvement.
Dr. Iriti studies and shapes the designs of equitable postsecondary opportunities, notably through projects such as the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship evaluation and its complementary coaching program. She also designs and studies networks for improvement, including the previously NSF-funded STEM PUSH Network and the University of Pittsburgh Sloan Centers for Systemic Change networked improvement community.
Dr. Iriti's publications include journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports, such as the "Free College Handbook," which informs policymakers on nearly two decades of scholarship. She's part of the NSF INCLUDES National Network Advisory Group, an invited expert panelist for the National Academy of Sciences' alliance formation workshop, and an invited scholar to the Obama administration's 2016 Domestic Policy Council convening. She holds a doctorate in Developmental and Educational Psychology and served 12 years as an elected school board director in South Fayette Township School District.
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Brooke English
Research and Evaluation Specialist
Brooke English (she/her) is a Research and Evaluation Specialist with the Evaluation for Learning team at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center. She uses mixed methods and community-engaged research to help programs implement continuous improvement activities, understand barriers to their success, and better achieve their goals. Her current work helps support the EFL's projects with the Pittsburgh Promise and its Coaching Initiative, City Charter High School, and the Sloan Foundation Centers for Systemic Change. She is also the emergent leader of the EFL's evaluation of Institutional Training Grants, including S-STEM grants. In past work, she has collaborated with the Texas Transgender Non-Discrimination Summit and Houston-area community colleges to assess the efficacy of anti-discrimination policies at their campuses. She holds a Master's in Linguistics from the University of California - Santa Barbara and a Bachelor's in Cognitive Science and the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality from Rice University. Her Master's thesis is titled "r/TransVoice: Emotions and Community-Based Voice Training." Outside of work, she loves to bake and do crosswords.
Danielle Lowry
Research Associate, Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh
Danielle is a research associate at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh. As part of the Evaluation for Learning (EFL) group at the LRDC, she works with schools and education nonprofits to evaluate trends and impacts of education programs. Her work supports evidence-based decision-making among education leaders and practitioners using mixed methods approaches. Her research centers on building college and career pathways, with particular attention to higher education financial aid policies and college access and success programs that serve students from underserved backgrounds. Danielle earned her doctoral degree in education administration and policy studies from the University of Pittsburgh, where she specialized in education policy and causal inference methods. She also holds a master's of public administration from Ohio State University.
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Frequent Collaborators
Disan Davis
Research Associate- BE STEM Center
Disan Schold Davis, Ph.D. (she/her) is a Research Associate at the Broadening Engagement in STEM Center (BE STEM) at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work includes the design and study of the STEM PUSH Network, a national community of pre-college program leaders working to increase student undergrad enrollment and persistence in STEM. She leads iterative, networked improvement efforts and designed a novel accreditation pathway for pre-college STEM programs in partnership with the Middle States Association (MSA-CESS). She also leads the Network's strategy to strengthen student college-going, building partnerships with admissions leaders and the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and serving on the Advisory Council for NACAC's Center for Innovation in College Admission. Disan has led a pre-college STEM program and taught middle and high school science. She earned her Chemistry Teaching Certificate from Hunter College and a Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University.
Aizat Nurshatayeva
Aizat Nurshatayeva is a Senior Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and an educational economist studying education both in the United States and internationally. Her research examines how educational policies may help students access and thrive in higher education through the theoretically informed application of rigorous methodologies to large-scale and institutional data. Prior to her current role, Aizat was an assistant professor of research methods at Suleyman Demirel University. She holds a PhD in administrative and policy studies from the University of Pittsburgh. When not at work, Aizat loves spending time with her family and going on long walks with friends.
Lindsay Page, Ed.D
Research Scientist
Lindsay C. Page is the Annenberg Associate Professor of Education Policy at Brown University and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her work focuses on quantitative methods and their application to questions regarding the effectiveness of educational policies and programs across the preschool to postsecondary spectrum. Much of her work has involved large-scale experimental or quasi-experimental studies to investigate the causal effects strategies for improving students' transition to and through college. She is particularly interested in policy efforts to improve college access and success for students who would be first in their family to reach postsecondary education. She holds a doctorate in quantitative policy analysis and master's degrees in statistics and in education policy from Harvard University. She earned a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College.
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Olivia Phillips
Research Project Manager
Olivia is the Research Project Manager for the Broadening Engagement in STEM Center (BE STEM) in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences. As part of the BE STEM team, she has worked with programs in the STEM PUSH Network on membership management, contract administration, and communications efforts. Olivia has experience in project management, higher education administration, community engagement initiatives, and research communication. She has worked at the University of Pittsburgh since 2016. She holds a Master of Public Administration in Urban Affairs and Planning from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Missouri.
Jennifer Sherer, PhD
Research Associate, LRDC
Jennifer Zoltners Sherer is a Research Associate at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research & Development Center (LRDC). Her work provides evidence-based support for network leaders as they design, initiate, and develop networks that improve outcomes for all students. She leads the Network Health and Development Project (improvementnetworks.org), a cross-institutional team studying improvement networks and building tools to support educators and organizations launching improvement networks. She has served as a hub leader and a developmental evaluator of improvement networks, a design fellow for The Institute for Learning, and a classroom teacher. Her research interests focus on distributed leadership, organizational change, and improving teaching and learning in K-12 systems through tool design and implementation, professional learning, reform initiatives, and curriculum. She received her PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University, an MAT from Lewis & Clark College, and a BA from Wesleyan University.
Alison Slinskey Legg
Executive Director - Broadening Engagement in STEM Center
Dr. Legg is a teaching professor (Biology) at the University of Pittsburgh, and founding Executive Director of the Broadening Engagement in STEM Center (BE STEM) in the Deitrich School of Arts & Sciences. BE STEM was designed to create a collective impact space that leverages expertise from academic and professional sectors to create and study STEM opportunities for all students, and is accredited as a learning services provider through Middle States Association. Her work focuses on designing and studying interventions aimed at expanding the STEM education to workforce pathway and includes large-scale initiatives that bridge academic research and community practice. Dr. Legg served as the Principal Investigator of the $10 million NSF INCLUDES ALLIANCE: STEM PUSH Network. Through STEM PUSH, Dr. Legg and her colleagues are working to make quality STEM education that happens in out-of-school-time pre-college programs recognized student achievement.