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Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Presenter Biographies

Using Educational Research and Innovation to Address Inequality and Achievement

Gaps in Education

Rebecca Allen

Director, Education Datalab

Professor and Director, Centre for Education Improvement Science, UCL Institute of Education

United Kingdom

Rebecca Allen is Director of Education Datalab, a research organisation that

specialises in the use of large scale administrative and survey datasets. From January

2018 she will be Professor of Education at UCL Institute of Education, London,

where she is setting up a new research centre in the field of school improvement

science. Her research explores the impact of government reforms on school behavior

and she has written extensively on school admissions and accountability.

Anna Ambrose

Director of Education

Swedish National Agency for Education

Sweden

Anna Ambrose is a Director of Education at the Swedish National Agency for

Education where she is responsible for steering documents covering several areas and

general questions around democracy and school segregation. With a background as a

high school teacher, teacher trainer, lecturer and researcher, she did her PhD at the

University of Stockholm, studying the consequences of school choice on a local

school market in a segregated and polarized urban area. Anna also holds a master’s in

Educational Sciences.

Mikko Aro

Professor of Special Education and a board member

Centre for Research on Learning and Teaching at University of Jyväskylä,

Finland

Mikko Aro is a professor of Special Education and a board member of the Centre for

Research on Learning and Teaching at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He received

his PhD in psychology 2004. He has also special psychologist degrees in Child

Neuropsychology (1993, Free University and Paedologisch Instituut, Amsterdam)

and Clinical Neuropsychology (1995, Finnish Neuropsychological Society and

University of Jyväskylä). Before his current position, Aro worked at Niilo Mäki

Institute where he was responsible for research and development projects focusing

on identification and treatment of reading disabilities. His primary research interests

relate to development of literacy and mathematical skills; dyslexia, dyscalculia and their comorbidity; and

interventions of developmental reading and arithmetic disabilities. His current research projects focus also

on the role of non-cognitive factors in learning and learning disabilities. Aro is an associate editor in

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and an editorial board member in Scientific Studies of

Reading.


Davide Azzolini

Research Fellow

Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies of the Bruno Kessler Foundation

Italy

Davide Azzolini is a research fellow at the Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies

of the Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK-IRVAPP), Italy. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology

and Social Research from the University of Trento and a Master Degree in Public Policy

Analysis from COREP, Turin. In 2010, he was visiting research collaborator at the

Office of Population Research of the Princeton University, US. His main research

interests include student achievement, inequality in educational opportunity,

international migration, immigrant integration and public policy analysis and

evaluation. He published papers on several peer-reviewed journals such as: The Annals

of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; Research in Social Stratification and Mobility;

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; and Demographic Research. Currently, he is involved in a number

of randomized controlled trials in the areas of policy to promote equal access to higher education; school

interventions to reduce achievement gaps; and training to enhance teachers’ digital competences.

Jeroen Backs

Head of Strategic Policy Division

Flemish Department of Education and Training,

Belgium

Jeroen Backs (°1977 in Ghent, Belgium) studied history at the University of Ghent.

Worked from 2001 on as head of a Centre for Basic education where adults with low

literacy skills and non-Dutch-speakers can strengthen their skills.

In 2004 he became advisor at the cabinet of the Flemish minister for Education Frank

Vandenbroucke, where he was the advisor for lifelong learning, ICT and the

integration policy of newcomers. Between 2004 and 2012 he worked as a guest

professor in a university college and in a teacher training centre.

In 2009 he became assistant director in the Flemish department of Education and Training. The main field

of interest remained lifelong learning, but he was also involved in the policy development on the

recognition of prior learning, the quality assurance in education, the reform of the secondary education,

the development of the short-cycle degrees in higher education.

In October 2012 he became the head of the strategic policy division. That division formulates policy

recommendations to the minister to support the conduct of an integrated in forward-looking policy. The

division coordinates the European and multilateral education policy, is responsible for the coordination of

the research and development-programs in the field of education and training, the monitoring and

evaluation of the implemented policies and gives legal advice on educational policy.


Thomas Brock

Commissioner

National Center for Education Research

Delegated the Duties of Director, Institute of Education Sciences

Thomas W. Brock joined the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in January 2013 as

the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Research (NCER). On January

3, 2017, U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. delegated the duties of IES

director to Dr. Brock, effective January 14, 2017. Over his career, Dr. Brock has

gained a national reputation in education research for conducting rigorous evaluations

using mixed methods to understand and inform efforts to improve education and

employment outcomes for low-income youth and adults.

In his four years as NCER Commissioner, Dr. Brock has deepened IES' commitment to supporting

rigorous, relevant research and providing training and learning opportunities to strengthen the education

sciences field. He has overseen the expansion of partnerships between researchers and practitioners and

policymakers to help ensure that education research is addressing the most pressing challenges in the

field. This has included the awarding of low-cost short-duration evaluation grants to states and schools

districts, and funding to build and grow researcher-practitioners partnerships. He also worked with NCER

staff to launch new research networks on the transition from preschool to elementary school, and on

college completion.

Dr. Brock holds a B.A. in anthropology from Pitzer College, a master's degree in public administration

from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Frank Brogan

Deputy Assistant Secretary

Delegated the Duties of the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy

Development

U.S. Department of Education

Frank Brogan serves as Deputy Assistant Secretary, Delegated the Duties of the

Assistant Secretary for the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at

the U.S. Department of Education. Frank brings rich experience to this role, from his

time as a classroom teacher, to principal, to superintendent of schools, to Florida

Commissioner of Education, and then on to serving as the Lieutenant Governor of

Florida. Frank also has led in postsecondary education; he was president of Florida

Atlantic University, and then Chancellor of the State University System of Florida. Most

recently, Frank served as the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher

Education. Frank lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his wife Courtney and his son Colby John.


Jacquelyn Buckley

Team Lead for Disability Research

Institute of Education Sciences(IES)

United States Department of Education

Jacquelyn Buckley, PhD, is the Team Lead for Disability Research in the National

Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) in the Institute of Education Sciences

(IES), the statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Buckley oversees a program of research on social and behavioral skills and

outcomes to support learning for students with or at risk for disabilities.

She also oversees a program of research on effective strategies for improving family

involvement in the education of students in ways that improve education or transition

outcomes for students with disabilities. Dr. Buckley’s additional research experiences and interests

include developmental pathways leading to antisocial outcomes, school-based mental health service use,

school removal, and the impact of prevention programs on academic and behavioral outcomes for

students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Prior to graduate school, she was a special education

teacher for middle school students. Dr. Buckley received her Ph.D. in Educational (School) Psychology

from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002.

Nihad Bunar

Professor of Child and Youth Studies

Stockholm University

Sweden

Nihad Bunar is a Professor of Child and Youth Studies at Stockholm University. His

research analyses the learning conditions for newly arrived children in Swedish

schools, school choice, urban education and the role of education in preventing

radicalization. Nihad has a large number of publications (articles in peer-reviewed

journals, reports, book-chapters and books) in Swedish and English. He has also

served as an expert and adviser for EU Commission (NESET), OECD (PISA report;

School market), European Police College (CEPOL), Croatian Ministry of Education,

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Education International, British Council

(MIPEX Education Strand) and a number of Swedish governmental agencies (National School

Inspectorate, National Agency for Education, National Research Council, etc.), on topics related to

migration and education. Nihad has been a key-note speaker at numerous conferences in Sweden and

internationally. He has also more than 100 media appearances in major Swedish and international

newspapers, radio and television programs, in Australia, Finland, Denmark, France, Latvia, Bosnia, USA,

Germany and Austria. Among his latest publications are: Bunar, N. & Ambrose, A. (2016). Schools,

choice and reputation: Local school markets and the distribution of symbolic capital in segregated cities.

Research in Comparative & International Education, 11(1), 34–51, and Bunar, N. (2017). Newcomers –

hope in a cold climate. Brussels: Education International Research.


Peggy G. Carr

Acting Commissioner, National Center for Education Statistics

Institute of Education Sciences (IES)


Peggy G. Carr, Ph.D. is Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Education

Statistics (NCES). NCES is the principal U.S. federal statistical agency for collecting

education data and reporting on the condition of education in the United States and

internationally. NCES is congressionally mandated to administer the National

Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and is responsible for administration

within the United States of international assessments, including the Program for

International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics

and Science Study (TIMSS), among others. Dr. Carr also continues to serve as

Associate Commissioner of the Assessment Division for NCES, a role she has held for nearly 20 years.

Dr. Carr received her B.S. in Psychology, with a concentration in statistics, from North Carolina Central

University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in developmental psychology from Howard University. She has

also served as the Chief Statistician for the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education. Dr.

Carr has published in a variety of areas including child psychology, social psychology, experimental

psychology, biostatistics, student achievement, and assessment methodology.

Emily Doolittle

Team Lead for Social Behavioral Research



Emily Doolittle is the Team Lead for Social Behavioral Research in the National Center

for Education Research (NCER) in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the statistics,

research, and evaluation arm of the U. S. Department of Education. Emily joined NCER

in 2008 where she oversees a program of research on social skills, attitudes, and behaviors

to support teaching and learning from kindergarten through high school. She received her

Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Chicago.

Greg Duncan

Distinguished Professor

School of Education, University of California

United States of America

Greg Duncan holds the title of Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the

University of California, Irvine. Duncan received his PhD in economics from the

University of Michigan and spent the first 35 years of his career at the University of

Michigan and Northwestern University. Duncan’s recent work has focused on estimating

the role of school-entry skills and behaviors on later school achievement and attainment

and the effects of increasing income inequality on schools and children’s life chances.

Duncan was President of the Population Association of America in 2008 and the Society

for Research in Child Development between 2009 and 2011. He was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences in 2010, was awarded the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2013 and was

selected as the Kenneth Boulding Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2014.

In 2015, he received SRCD's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child

Development.


Caroline Ebanks

Team Lead for Early Childhood Research

National Center for Education Research



Caroline Ebanks is the Early Childhood Team Lead for the National Center for

Education Research (NCER) at the Institute of Education Sciences and the Program

Officer for two current NCER research grant programs, the Early Learning

Programs and Policies research topic and the Early Learning Research Network.

Dr. Ebanks served as the Program Officer for the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation

Research program, a multi-site evaluation study of preschool curricula, and the

National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education. Dr. Ebanks has

worked on several initiatives addressing early learning and development of young

children. Her prior research focused on social and academic predictors of children’s early school

adjustment. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University.

Gregory Elacqua Principal Education Economist,

Inter-American Development Bank United States of America

Gregory Elacqua is the Principal Economist in the Education Division at the Inter-

American Development Bank in Washington D.C. He has conducted extensive

research on schools in and Latin America and has also been active in educational

policy reform. Elacqua was previously the Director of the Public Policy Institute at

the School of Business and Economics at the Universidad Diego Portales (UDP) in

Chile. His research focuses on school finance, the economics of education, school

accountability, teacher policy, school choice, and the political economy of the

educational system. He has written books, journal articles, monographs, and reports

on these topics. Elacqua has also been active in the world of education policy. He

has been advisor to three Ministers of Education in Chile and has also served as an

advisor to a member of the Education Committee in the Chilean Senate. He holds a Ph.D. in Public

Policy from Princeton University.

Stephen Fraser

Director, International Partnerships

The Education Endowment Foundation

United Kingdom

Stephen Fraser leads the development of the EEF’s international partnerships. These

partnerships support the adoption and generation of evidence beyond England, and

contribute back into the evidence base for English schools. He also contributes to the

EEF’s dissemination and impact work, collaborating with educators to understand and

translate evidence to support practical implementation in their local context. Stephen

is seconded from the Department of Education and Training in Victoria, Australia,

where he has worked as a senior advisor to the Minister for Education, a Director in

the office of the Secretary, and Executive Director of the Department’s

Implementation Division. Stephen holds a BA and a BSc, and has previously worked

in the English education system at Key Stages 2 and 3, GCSE and Higher Education levels.


Douglas Fuchs

Professor, Special Education and Human Development at Peabody College

Vanderbilt University


Douglas Fuchs, Ph.D. is Professor and Nicholas Hobbs Chair in Special Education and

Human Development at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University and a Professor of

Pediatrics at the Vanderbilt Medical Center. He has been Principal Investigator of 50

federally-sponsored research grants to develop approaches to service delivery (e.g., pre-

referral intervention, responsiveness-to-intervention); assessment (e.g., formative

measures of student and teacher evaluation, dynamic assessment); and instruction (e.g.,

peer-mediated learning strategies). He is the author or co-author of 325 articles in peer-

review journals and 60 book chapters and was identified by Thomson Reuters as among

the 250 most frequently cited researchers in the social sciences in the United States from

2000-2010, inclusive. In 2014, he and Lynn Fuchs were recipients of the American Educational Research

Association’s Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award, the purpose of which “is to

publicize, motivate, encourage, and suggest models for educational research at its best.” Before joining the

faculty in 1985, Fuchs was a classroom teacher and school psychologist in public schools.

Adam Gamoran

President

William T. Grant Foundation


Adam Gamoran is president of the William T. Grant Foundation, a charitable

organization that supports research to improve the lives of young people. Two main

research priorities guide the Foundation’s grantmaking: identifying ways to reduce

inequality in youth outcomes, and improving the use of evidence from research in

decisions about policy and practice that affect young people. Prior to assuming the

leadership of the Foundation, Gamoran held the John D. MacArthur Chair in Sociology

and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he

spent three decades engaged in research on educational inequality and school reform.

Recent writing includes essays such as “The future of educational inequality: What went wrong, and how

can we fix it?” (William T. Grant Foundation, 2015) and research articles including “Does racial isolation

in school lead to long-term disadvantages? Labor market consequences of high school racial composition”

(American Journal of Sociology, 2016). His national service activities include serving as former chair of

the Independent Advisory Panel of the National Assessment of Career and Technical Education for the U.S.

Department of Education, and current chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academies

of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education,

which he currently serves as vice president, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition,

he was twice appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Board for Education Sciences.


Christophe Gomes

Deputy Director

Agir pour l’Ecole

France

Christophe Gomes is Deputy Director at Agir pour l’école, which he joined in April

2011. Among other tasks, he manages the association’s field operations and conducts

experimentations that take place in classrooms in various regions of France. He has been

and remains the key contributor to Agir pour l’école’s development of digital tools.

Prior to his work at Agir pour l’école, Christophe Gomes enhanced his insight into

public policy at the National Assembly, where he was an associate for a French Deputee.

There, he contributed to the drafting of various legislative projects and legal syntheses aimed at legislators

and handled public relations between legislators and the government.

His enthusiasm for education led him to Agir pour l’école, where he saw a golden opportunity for

contributing to the progress of children’s literacy levels.

Christophe Gomes holds a Master’s degree in Business Law and New Technologies Law from the Sorbonne

which he later complemented with a CISCO certificate in Network Fundamentals. He speaks fluent French

and Portuguese and has also been awarded certificates of proficiency in English and Spanish.

Arthur Heim

Project Manager

France Stratégie

Arthur Heim graduated from Paris School of Economics in 2013 with a major in public

policies evaluation. He started working as an applied economist at CNESCO, the French

national council for the school system evaluation. He published several reports and

research papers about grade repetition, remedial education and the impact of private

tutoring on student’s achievement. Since 2015, Arthur has been working as a project

manager for France Strategie, a think tank under the authority of the French prime

minister, and for the National Office for Family Allocations on broader issues such as

early childhood education, education and growth and social policies. His current

research interests focus on policies to alleviate child poverty and fostering children

development at early age. Arthur is involved in two projects relying on randomized control trials to assess

the causal impact of two different policies. The first started in October and evaluates a tutoring program

aiming at helping single-mothers on welfare finding a job. The second is supposed to start in 2018 to

estimate the impact of center based child care vs other alternatives on children development.


Daniel Hernandez

Academic Development Sectorial Coordinator for Upper Middle Education

Secretariat of Public Education

Mexico

Mr. Hernández is an economist, Master of Public Health, with an Honorary Doctorate

for his work in Social Policy in México. Mr. Hernández has been two times the

National Coordinator of México’s most important anti-poverty program (Progresa-

Oportunidades, now Prospera), where que directed the development of the

methodology for the identification of families in poverty, the design of the

conditionalities scheme for cash transfers, and the first evaluation studies.

He has been Chief of Staff of the National Ministry of Social Development, of the

Public Education Ministry, and of the National Population Council of México.

Since 2013 he collaborates at the Under ministry of Higher Middle Education (which covers grades 10 to

12). Mr. Hernández is the Head of the Academic Development Sectorial Coordination, which oversees

curriculum development, students learning achievements, and continuous teachers’ formation.

Gabor Kertesi

Head of the Education Economics Group

Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Hungary

Gábor Kertesi is senior research fellow and head of the Economics of Education and

Labor department of Institute of Economics at Hungarian Academy of Sciences CERS.

Previously he was associate professor of economics at Corvinus University (Budapest)

where he taught undergraduate courses in microeconomics and graduate courses in labor

economics. He does empirical research in labor economics, demography, education and

health policy. His research focuses on human capital accumulation, employment,

educational and health inequalities and the disadvantages of Roma minority in Eastern

Europe. He received his doctorate in economics from Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Paul Leseman

Professor of Education

Utrecht University

The Netherlands

Paul Leseman majored in psychology at the University of Amsterdam and

obtained his PhD in social sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (1990).

He was a postdoctoral research fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and

Sciences. Since 2003, he is a full professor of education at Utrecht University and

chair of the interdisciplinary research focus area Education for Learning Societies

at Utrecht University. He is principal investigator of the Dutch national cohort

study pre-COOL (2009-2020) on the effects of early childhood care and education

provisions on children’s development and school achievement and of the Dutch national Child Daycare

Quality Monitor (LKK; 2017-2027). He is scientific coordinator of the European Union’s Seventh

Framework Project CARE (Curriculum and Quality Assessment and Impact Review of

European Early Childhood Education and Care; 2014-2016) and the European Union’s Horizon 2020

Project ISOTIS (Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society; 2016-2019).


He is member of the OECD Technical Advisory Group to the TALIS and Starting Strong Staff Survey.

He authored a research review on efficacy of early childhood care and education for low income and

immigrant children, commissioned by the OECD (2002) and a research review on integrated early

childhood care and education, commissioned by the European Commission (2009). He published on

emergent literacy and numeracy, executive functions, bilingual development, and the effectiveness of

early childhood education and care.

John F. Pane

Distinguished Chair in Education Innovation and Senior Scientist

RAND Education


John F. Pane is Distinguished Chair in Education Innovation and Senior Scientist in

RAND’s Education unit. Dr. Pane researches the implementation and effectiveness of

innovations in education, with a focus on personalized learning, education technology,

math, and science. His expertise includes the application of experimental and rigorous

quasi-experimental methods. He has led or co-led numerous experiments using

individual-level or school-level random assignment, including a large-scale

effectiveness trial of mathematics tutoring software in 147 schools in 51 school districts in seven states;

and several efficacy experiments, including one examining the effects of summer learning programs in

five urban school districts. He also leads quasi-experimental evaluations of schools implementing

personalized learning models, and of Investing in Innovation and Race to the Top District projects in rural

Kentucky that are using technology to increase student readiness for college and careers. Previously, he

co-directed the Carnegie Mellon and RAND Traineeships in Methodology and Interdisciplinary Research

(CMART), an IES postdoctoral training program, and led evaluations of a NSF math and science

partnership and a school district’s one-to-one laptop initiative, investigated data-driven decision making

practices in education, and studied the effects of the 2005 hurricanes on public school students in

Louisiana. Sponsors of his research have included the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. National

Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the U.S. Army, the

Heinz Endowments, and the Grable, Pittsburgh, and Benedum Foundations. He holds a Ph.D. in

Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Sean Reardon

Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education

Stanford Graduate School of Education


Sean Reardon is the endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education and is

Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology at Stanford University. His research focuses on

the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality,

the effects of educational policy on educational and social inequality, and in applied

statistical methods for educational research. In addition, he develops methods of

measuring social and educational inequality (including the measurement of

segregation and achievement gaps) and methods of causal inference in educational

and social science research. He teaches graduate courses in applied statistical

methods, with a particular emphasis on the application of experimental and quasi-experimental methods to

the investigation of issues of educational policy and practice. Sean received his doctorate in education in

1997 from Harvard University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and the American

Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a recipient of the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award,

the National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.


Deborah Roseveare

Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division

Directorate for Education and Skills

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Ms Deborah Roseveare is currently Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress

Division which covers both the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation

(CERI) and the Indicators of Educational Systems (INES) programme in the OECD

Directorate for Education and Skills. From 2011 to September 2017, she was

responsible for the Skills beyond School Division. Her responsibilities spanned the

PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, the OECD Skills Outlook, policy analysis and advice

on more effective vocational education and training and higher education systems and

working with countries to design and implement national skills strategies. Between

2007 and 2011 she was Head of the Education and Training Policy Division which

provided policy analysis and advice to help governments develop and implement more effective policies

across all levels of education and training from early childhood to lifelong learning.

A New Zealand and British national, Ms Roseveare worked in the OECD’s Economics Department between

1993 and 2007 providing cross-country and country-specific analysis and policy advice on a broad range

of economic and social issues including human capital, public finances, macroeconomics, ageing

populations, product markets, labour markets, and fostering entrepreneurship. Between 1976 and 1993, she

held various positions in the NZ public service.

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

Professor

Northwestern University, Chicago IL


IPR Director Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach studies policies aimed at improving

the lives of children in poverty, including education, health, and income support

policies. Her recent work has focused on tracing the impact of major public policies

such as the Food Stamp Program and early childhood education on children’s long-

term outcomes.

Her research has received financial support from the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation and the

Smith-Richardson Foundation, and has been published in the Quarterly Journal of

Economics, American Economic Review, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Review

of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Human Resources, among other outlets. She has testified

before both the Senate and House of Representatives on her research.

From 2015–17, Schanzenbach served as director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution in

Washington, D.C. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research

associate at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a visiting

scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.


Andreas Schleicher

Director for the Directorate for Education and Skills and Special Advisor on Education Policy to

the SG

EDU


Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on

Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD). As a key member of the OECD’s Senior

Management team, he supports the Secretary-General’s strategy to produce analysis

and policy advice that advances economic growth and social progress. In addition

to policy and country reviews, he oversees the Programme for International Student

Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Skills

Strategy, the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and

analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).

Before joining the OECD, Mr. Schleicher was Director for Analysis at the International Association for

Educational Achievement (IEA). He studied Physics in Germany and received a degree in Mathematics and

Statistics in Australia. He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the “Theodor Heuss”

prize, awarded in the name of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany for “exemplary

democratic engagement”. He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg.

James Turner

Deputy Chief Executive

The Education Endowment Foundation

United Kingdom

James leads across all areas of the EEF’s activity. He has been involved in the EEF

since its start, first leading the Sutton Trust’s successful bid to the Department for

Education, then setting up the charity’s infrastructure and strategy, and latterly

serving as a founding trustee. Prior to his role at EEF, James was the Director of

Programmes and Partnerships at the social mobility charity the Sutton Trust, where

he worked for ten years on policy, research and practical projects, and where he

remains an advisor. James was also a founding trustee of the work experience charity

PRIME and the Children’s University Trust. He is currently the Vice Chair of The

Brilliant Club, one of the largest university access charities in English secondary schools, and a governor

of a comprehensive school in the East Midlands where he lives.

Lynne Vernon-Feagans

Senior Research Scientist

University of North Carolina


Since receiving her Ph.D. in developmental psychology and linguistics at the

University of Michigan, Lynne Vernon-Feagans has focused her research on children

at risk for school failure, especially African-American and non-African American

children who live in rural poverty. She has more than 100 peer reviewed publications.

She has been the the principal investigator of the NIH funded Family Life Project, a

birth-cohort representative sample of 1292 rural children, oversampling for poverty

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and African American. The children are now in 7th grade. She has linked language experiences in home and

childcare to children’s later language and literacy in school with recent work emphasizing the role of teacher

instruction in reducing achievement gaps. In an extension of this work, she was the co-principal investigator

of the National Research Center on Rural Education Support, where she and her colleagues developed the

Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), a professional development program for classroom teachers to

improve early literacy instruction for struggling readers in rural America. Using cost effective webcam

technology the Targeted Reading Intervention has been able and continues to improve teacher effectiveness

in instruction and large gains for struggling readers in literacy in a series of RCTs funded by IES. The TRI

is now endorsed by What Works Clearinghouse.

Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin

Deputy Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division

Senior Analyst and Project Leader

Directorate for Education and Skills


Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin is a Senior Analyst, Project Leader and Deputy Head of

Division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Directorate

for Education and Skills). He works for the OECD Centre for Education Research and

Innovation (CERI) and leads work on innovation in education, and on education for

innovation.

His current work covers the nature of education and skills that matter in innovation and

knowledge societies; the fostering and assessment of students’ creativity and critical

thinking; the determinants of innovation-friendly ecosystems in the education sector,

including digital technology, educational entrepreneurship, educational research, system and school

organisation; the measurement of innovation in education. Stéphan’s work covers all levels of education,

but he has worked and published extensively on higher education, notably on cross-border higher education,

the future of higher education and, most recently, on “open higher education”. In addition to many articles

and book chapters, he has co-authored and edited many OECD reports.

Before joining the OECD, he has worked as lecturer and researcher in economics at the University of Paris-

Nanterre and the London School of Economics. He is a Marie Curie Fellow and a 2007 Fulbright New

Century Scholar. He holds a PhD in economics, an ESCP Europe degree in business management, and a

master’s in philosophy.

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