Dr. Jason Okonofua is a professor at Brown University. Before assuming this position, he attend Northwestern University and Stanford University for his undergraduate and doctorate degrees.

His research focuses on processes by which stereotypes can shape outcomes of high-stakes relationships and tests scalable means to mitigate those effects in various institutions and organizations. At present, he applies his research in real-world settings such as K-12 schools, jails, workplaces, and hospitals.

Jason’s research program examines social-psychological processes that contribute to inequity. One context in which he has examined these processes is that of teacher-student relationships and race disparities in disciplinary action. His research emphasizes the on-going interplay between psychological/mindset processes that originate among teachers (how stereotyping can influence discipline) and students (how apprehension to bias can incite misbehavior) to examine causes for disproportionate discipline according to race. The intersection of these processes, Jason hypothesizes, undermines teacher-student relationships over time, contributes to disproportionate discipline to racially stigmatized students, and ultimately feeds the “school-to-prison” pipeline. By investigating basic processes that contribute to misinterpreted and misguided disrespect among teachers and students, he aims to develop novel interventions that empower teachers to reach their teaching goals and interventions that help students – especially racially stigmatized youth – succeed in school and reduce their risk of discipline problems.

For example, he conducted a large scale randomized controlled trial that showed a scalable virtual program reduced racial disparities in yearlong suspensions by 45% for a sample of ~6,000 students across 20 cities.

Another one of his interventions significantly cut recidivism rates for a sample of ~20,000 adults on probation and parole.

Both large-scale interventions targeted the mindsets of the people in positions of power (i.e., teachers and officers) to sideline bias with a more functional focus on empathy to shift the way the interacted with the individuals under their supervision, namely the ones from groups stigmatized in that particular setting.

His research has been published in top journals, including Science Advances, Psychological Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His intervention work has received international recognition with awards such as the annual Cialdini Award for applied research from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology’s international conference. The work has been recognized and recommended by the US Department of Education and funded by such organizations and foundations as Google, Tides Foundation, Character Lab, and the Bureau for Justice Statistics. And the findings have been featured on a variety of popular media outlets, including National Public Radio, New York Times, MSNBC, Reuters, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Wall Street Journal, and Education Week.

Jim Wyckoff is the Curry Memorial Professor of Education and Policy, and Director of the Center for Education Policy and Workforce Competitiveness at the University of Virginia. He has published widely on issues of teacher labor markets, teacher preparation, recruitment, assessment and retention. In this work he has collaborated with policymakers in New York City, New York State and most recently the District of Columbia.  Currently, he is examining how teacher assessment and evaluation systems influence the quality of teaching, especially in traditionally low performing classrooms. He is a member of the editorial board of Education Finance and Policy. He has served on four National Research Council panels examining issues in teacher preparation, and the school lunch program, was the president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, and served on the Policy Council for the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Isabel Levin is a proud graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (B.A. in Sociology, minor in Education) and a current Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Brown. As an undergraduate, she developed her research skills through programs including the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates at UT Austin and the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program at UNC Chapel Hill. 

She has worked on projects within the sociology of law and gender as a research assistant (primarily by conducting interviews), though her personal interests broadly lie in education, family, and immigration. Specific projects of hers have assessed the actions taken by North Carolina school administrators to meet the needs of Latino families and the impact of intergenerational closure on educational attainment. In her future research projects, she is excited to explore family-school relationships, child-rearing and parental educational involvement, and the role of schools in community development and family socialization. She has presented her work at the American Sociological Association and the Population Association of America Annual Meetings, and looks forward to expanding her intellectual community with like-minded scholars in the years to come. In her free time, she enjoys practicing yoga, watching reality TV, and hanging out with her beloved cat, Grover.

Isabel synthesizes work across the Exchange initiatives – EdResearch for Action, EdWorkingPapers, and EdInstruments – to strengthen the connection between what education researchers are uncovering and how policymakers and practitioners are applying that knowledge. Her commitment to evidence sharing and utilization began with her tenure as an educator, notably during her Fulbright placement in the Canary Islands of Spain, where she taught elementary school students from a diverse immigrant community. Seeking to learn and apply the best practices for serving the needs of her students, Isabel joined a research center focusing on effective instruction and professional development for local teachers, which further sparked her interest in synergizing research and practice. 

Upon returning to the U.S., Isabel worked with the Immigration Initiative at Harvard, contributing to the development of a resource repository that bridges research findings on immigration's impact on education with practical applications. Isabel also spent several years managing a research lab that employs neurophysiological techniques to examine how children with language and learning disorders acquire new knowledge in order to equip educators of diverse learners with evidence-based teaching approaches.

At Annenberg, Isabel leverages her expertise to design welcoming and engaging spaces of convening for stakeholders in education, fostering dialogue and knowledge exchange. When she is not at work, Isabel finds joy in teaching, whether that be as a Harvard teaching fellow, a Spanish tutor, a sailing coach, or a dog trainer. She holds an Ed.M. in Human Development and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, complemented by B.A.'s in Psychology and Spanish from the College of the Holy Cross.  

Ian Ferguson is a Research Program Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University and a member of the Educational Opportunity in Massachusetts project team. In this team, his primary focus is on the educational attainment and opportunities for recent immigrant students enrolled in Massachusetts public high schools. Prior to his work at the Annenberg Institute, Ian taught middle school science to students with disabilities in New Jersey. In this role, Ian’s interest in education policy was developed, as he noted the significant barriers to education that English Learners with disabilities face in public school settings.  

Ian holds an Ed.M. in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an Ed.M. in Early Childhood/Elementary Education from Rutgers University.  

When not at work, Ian enjoys traveling across the American Southwest and cooking new recipes.

Heather C. Hill studies policies and programs designed to improve mathematics teacher and teaching quality. Her recent research focuses on: teacher professional development, instructional coaching, teacher evaluation, changes over time in teachers' mathematical knowledge and instructional quality in mathematics, and the teacher experiences and characteristics that lead to high-quality instruction and stronger student outcomes. Hill and her team have developed assessments that capture teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching and teachers' mathematical quality of instruction, assessments now widely available to researchers, instructional coaches, evaluators, and policy-makers via online training and administrative systems. Hill is a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and serves on the AERA grants board, on the editorial boards of several journals, and as an advisor to numerous research projects and policy efforts in both the U.S. and abroad. She is co-author of Learning Policy: When State Education Reform Works with David K. Cohen (Yale Press, 2001).

Hannah Kistler is an Assistant Professor at the University of Albany. She uses rigorous quantitative methods to answer questions about how best to improve and increase teacher quality, diversity, recruitment, and retention, particularly in schools serving historically marginalized students. 

Hannah identifies as a former middle school teacher and a proud product of California’s public schools, and she brings her perspective as a practitioner and student to her work.  She was drawn to the opportunity at Annenberg to engage with stakeholders and use evidence to generate research that has real impacts for students and teachers in Rhode Island.     

She holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy from Vanderbilt University as well as a Master of Arts in Teaching from Marian University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Smith College.

Dr. Frank is the Associate Director of the Brown Research on Implementation and Dissemination to Guide Evidence Use (BRIDGE) Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. In this role, she provides training, mentoring, and consultation on topics related to implementation science. Dr. Frank received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Temple University in 2020. She completed her residency training and T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University in the Pediatric Anxiety Research Center at Bradley Hospital.

Dr. Frank's research focuses on using implementation science methods to increase clinician adoption and sustainment of evidence-based interventions for internalizing disorders. Specifically, she has clinical expertise in exposure therapy for anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). She has led formative work focused on designing implementation strategies to support therapists to overcome their own anxiety about using exposures. In addition, Dr. Frank has collaborated on research spanning a range of content areas and using several implementation science methods including formative evaluation, community engagement, design and tailoring of implementation strategies, assessment of implementation mechanisms, and implementation outcome assessment. Dr. Frank has led and mentored several qualitative and mixed methods studies focused on assessing contextual factors that influence the implementation of evidence-based interventions. Her work spans multiple settings, including schools, hospitals, community mental health centers, and community-based organizations.

Greer Mellon is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, where she is also affiliated with the Population Studies and Training Center. She is a sociologist who studies how educational organizations contribute to social inequalities. Her current research examines how the characteristics of superintendents and school board members contribute to variation in educational policymaking, and lead to differences in student achievement. She primarily uses quantitative research methods and works with both administrative data and experimental data sources.   

Greer received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, an M.A. in Statistics from Columbia University, an M.Phil. in International Development Studies from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. in History from Columbia University. Before beginning her doctoral research, Greer worked in nonprofit and federal government research, and worked in research positions for the Digital Harbor Foundation, Legal Services Corporation, and Benenson Strategy Group. www.greermellon.com