Faculty


David Uttal, Director

David Uttal

UttalDavid.08

Professor, Psychology
Professor, Education

Research Interests

Mental representation, cognitive development, spatial cognition, early symbolization.

duttal@northwestern.edu
David Uttal Bio


STEERING COMMITTEE


Cynthia Coburn

cynthia-profile-2014

Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Relationship between instructional policy and teachers’ classroom practices in urban schools.

cynthia.coburn@northwestern.edu
Cynthia Coburn Bio


Jonathan Guryan

jonathan-guryan-profile

Lawyer Taylor Professor of Education and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research 

Research Interests

Understanding the sources and consequences of racial inequality and the economics of education.

j-guryan@northwestern.edu
Jonathan Guryan Bio


Larry Hedges

HedgesLarr06

Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Development and application of statistical methods for the social, medical, and biological sciences; evaluation research.

l-hedges@northwestern.edu
Larry Hedges Bio


C. Kirabo Jackson

kirabo-jackson-profile

Abraham Harris Professor of Education and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Economics of education, labor economics, public finance, applied econometrics, development.

kirabo-jackson@northwestern.edu
Kirabo Jackson Bio


Nichole Pinkard

Alice Hamilton Professor of Education and Social Policy
Professor of Learning Sciences
Faculty Director of the Office of Community Education Partnerships

Research Interests

Design and use of pedagogical-based social networks and socio-technical systems to support community-level ecological models of learning

nichole.pinkard@northwestern.edu
Nichole Pinkard Bio


Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Ex Officio

Director and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research 
Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Human Development and Social Policy

Research Interests

Policy implementation; education, health and support of children in poverty.

dws@northwestern.edu
Diane Schanzenbach Bio


James Spillane, Ex Officio

jim-spillane-profile

Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change
Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Professor, Learning Sciences
Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Policy implementation; educational policy; organizational change; school leadership; relations between policy and teachers’ and administrators’ practice.

j-spillane@northwestern.edu
Jim Spillane Bio

 


CORE FACULTY


Emma Adam

emma-adam-2013

Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Human Development and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research 

Research Interests

Social influences on emotional and physiological stress and sleep quality in children and adolescents and their parents; effects of stress and sleep on emotional and physical health and academic outcomes.

Emma Adam Bio


Megan Bang

Megan Bang

Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Dynamics of culture, learning, and development broadly with a specific focus on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective and just learning environments in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education; reasoning and decision-making about complex socio-ecological systems in ways that intersect with culture, power, and historicity.

Megan Bang Bio


Tabitha Bonilla

Assistant Professor, Human Development & Social Policy

Research Interests

Political communication, identity (race, gender, and intersectionality), political behavior (voting, contact with representatives, etc.) , political attitudes, and measurement of bias.

Tabitha Bonilla Bio


Jeannette Colyvas

Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Associate Professor, Learning Sciences
Associate Professor and Executive Board Member , Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
Associate Professor (by courtesy) , Department of Sociology
Associate Professor (by courtesy) , MORS, Kellogg School of Management
Faculty Affiliate , Institute for Policy Research
Director of Undergraduate Programs , School of Education and Social Policy

Research Interests

Organizational persistence and change; diffusion, implementation, and institutionalization; institutions and networks; comparing public, private, and non-profit forms of organizing; government-university-industry interfaces; public and private science.

j-colyvas@northwestern.edu
Jeannette Colyas Bio


Mesmin Destin

mesmin-destin-profile

Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Associate Professor, Psychology

Research Interests

Psychological processes underlying associations between socioeconomic circumstances and behaviors/outcomes, such as academic motivation and achievement; effects of financial assets on goals and behavior; small classroom-based interventions to improve school outcomes for low-income and minority youth.

m-destin@northwestern.edu
Mesmin Destin Bio


 Matthew Easterday

matt-easterday-profile

Associate Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Technology for the new civics – producing scientifically supported educational technology to create informed and engaged citizens who can solve the serious policy problems facing society such as poverty, global warming and militarism. Training such citizens requires us to understand how competent citizens analyze policy, communicate issues, and organize to make change. It also requires us to design more effective educational technology that can teach the knowledge, skills and dispositions citizens need.

easterday@northwestern.edu
Matt Easterday Bio


David Figlio

figlio-david-profile

Dean, School of Education and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research 
Orrington Lunt Professor of Education and Social Policy

Research Interests

Accountability policy; economics of education; teacher quality; teacher labor markets; anti-poverty policy; intergenerational transmission of human capital; evaluation design.

figlio@northwestern.edu
David Figlio Bio


Claudia Haase 

Claudia Haase

Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Associate Professor, Psychology
Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences

Research Interests

Life-span development; emotion; motivation; close relationships; psychophysiology

claudia.haase@northwestern.edu
Claudia Haase Bio


Michael Horn

HornMichael

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Learning Sciences
Associate Professor, Computer Science

Research Interests

Design of educational technology, learning in museums, computer programming, tangible interaction.

michael-horn@northwestern.edu
Michael Horn Bio


Simone Ipsa-Landa

Associate Professor, Sociology and Human Development and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Ispa-Landa’s scholarship concerns the sociology of education, race and gender, and youth peer cultures. She is interested in understanding how individuals and groups respond to stigma and discrimination, maintain the meaning systems that support it, and seek to overcome its negative consequences. She is currently working on two projects: first, how college men and women in historically white Greek life navigate gendered power dynamics and sexual violence. Her second project is a book about the strengths and challenges of various approaches to racial disparities in discipline in a self-consciously liberal suburban school district. Her areas of teaching include race and ethnicity, gender, sociology of education, sociology of youth and childhood, and qualitative research methods.

s-ispa-landa@northwestern.edu
Simone Ipsa-Landa Bio


Molly Losh

Jo Ann G. and Peter F. Dolle Professor of Learning Disabilities
Associate Dean for Research

Research Interests

Her research focuses on autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions, with a specific focus on understanding the basis of language and communication impairments that span diagnostic boundaries. Work from her lab has helped to identify key cognitive mechanisms that may underlie the social-communicative impairments in autism, in order to bridge gaps between observable clinical behaviors and underlying biology, necessary for understanding the causes of autism and related conditions.

m-losh@northwestern.edu
Molly Losh Bio


Ofer Malamud

Ofer Malamud

Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

General and vocational education; Technology and child development; Returns to college education

ofer.malamud@northwestern.edu
Ofer Malamud Bio


Quinn Mulroy

Assistant Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Political Science
Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Quinn Mulroy is a political scientist whose work engages central questions in the subfields of social policy, law and society, inequality, political institutions, and American political developmentAt its core, her research agenda centers substantively on the study of inequality (racial, economic, and gender) through the lens of the policies, state-society relationships, and political institutions that can reinforce and/or challenge its persistence in American politics. Using a mixed set of methodological approaches – including historical analyses of archival materials, ethnographic observation, interviewing, survey experiments, and statistical examinations of quantitative data – she is engaged in several ongoing projects exploring the political development of social policy addressing inequality and the often informal, hidden, and unintended modes of enforcement crafted by those who implement it.

qmulroy@northwestern.edu
Quinn Mulroy Bio


Jen Munson 

Jen Munson

Assistant Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Mathematics teaching and learning; coaching and professional development; teacher education

jmunson@northwestern.edu
Jen Munson Bio


Yang Qu

Assistant Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Department of Psychology
Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

Yang Qu is a developmental psychologist who takes an interdisciplinary approach that combines developmental psychology, cultural psychology, and neuroscience to examine how sociocultural contexts shape adolescent development. In this vein, he has two lines of research. First, Yang investigates the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying cultural differences in adolescents’ academic, social, and emotional development. Second, he examines how parents influence adolescents’ beliefs and brain, with attention to the implications for adolescents’ learning and psychological adjustment. In both these lines of inquiry, Yang studies children from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds using a variety of methodological approaches, including longitudinal and experimental designs along with survey, observational, and biological (e.g., neuroimaging with fMRI) assessments.

yangqu@northwestern.edu
Yang Qu Bio


David Rapp

David Rapp

Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence
Professor, Learning Sciences
Professor, Psychology

Research Interests

Reading comprehension; memory following learning experiences; updating prior knowledge; the acquisition of accurate and inaccurate information; translation of cognitive science research to educational settings; multimedia learning; visualizations as learning tools.

rapp@northwestern.edu
David Rapp Bio


Brian Reiser

Orrington Lunt Professor of Education and Social Policy
Professor of Learning Sciences

Research Interests

The design of learning environments and curriculum materials for science that support authentic practices including explanation, argumentation, and designing investigations. His research examines the cognitive and social interaction aspects of scientific inquiry, principles for scaffolding practices in software and curriculum materials, teaching practices, and curriculum design frameworks.

reiser@northwestern.edu
Brian Reiser Bio


William Revelle

Professor, Psychology

Research Interests

Psychometric theory; structural equation modeling

revelle@northwestern.edu
William Revelle Bio


Megan York Roberts

Associate Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders

Research Interests

My work focuses on improving access to effective early intervention for toddlers with developmental delays (e.g., autism, hearing loss). This clinically-based line of research examines new ways of identifying autism and different variations of caregiver-mediated communication interventions tailored specifically for different populations of children.

megan.y.roberts@northwestern.edu
Megan Roberts Bio


James Rosenbaum

j_rosenbaum

Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Professor, Sociology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research

Research Interests

High schools, community colleges, youth transitions to work and adulthood. School and college reform and restructuring. Sociology of education.

j-rosenbaum@northwestern.edu
James Rosenbaum Bio


Terri J. Sabol

terri-sabol-profile

Assistant Professor, Human Development and Social Policy

Research Interests

Individual and environmental factors that lead to healthy child development.

terri.sabol@northwestern.edu
Terri Sabol Bio


Bruce Sherin

SherinBruce.06

Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Conceptual change in science; computational linguistics applied to natural language data; programming environments for learning; external representations in science and mathematics.

bsherin@northwestern.edu
Bruce Sherin Bio


Miriam Sherin

Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor of Learning Sciences
Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education

Research Interests

Mathematics teaching and learning; teacher cognition and teacher noticing, the role of video in teacher learning.

msherin@northwestern.edu
Miriam Sherin Bio


Reed Stevens

Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

Learning and activity in a wide range of places and situations; design of learning tools curriculum, activities, and technologies.

reed-stevens@northwestern.edu
Reed Stevens Bio


L. Elizabeth Tipton

Ad Hoc MS Program Director
Associate Professor, Statistics

Research Interests

Decision-making; improving generalizability and external validity of randomized trials; development of statistical methods and tools for causal generalizations.

tipton@northwestern.edu
Elizabeth Tipton Bio


Sepehr Vakil

Sepehr Vakil

Assistant Professor, Learning Sciences
Affiliated Faculty Member, Science in Human Cultures Program
Affiliated Faculty Member, Cognitive Science Program

Research Interests

Intersections of technology, race, ethics, and learning; STEM education; participatory design and community-engaged research methodologies; historical and sociopolitical analyses of engineering and computer science education across global contexts; philosophy and history of education

sepehr.vakil@northwestern.edu
Sepehr Vakil Bio


Shirin Vossoughi

Associate Professor, Learning Sciences

Research Interests

As a learning scientist and ethnographer of education, I am concerned with understanding the social, cultural, political and ethical dimensions of human learning in ways that contribute to projects of educational justice. To this end, I study the forms of pedagogical mediation, thinking, relationality and development that take shape within settings that cultivate transformative learning, particularly with migrant, immigrant, diasporic and other non-dominant youth. My work seeks to understand micro-interactional processes of human learning as tied to broader forms of social change, and the potentials of learning environments as lived arguments for the possible.

shirin.vossoughi@northwestern.edu
Shirin Vossoughi Bio


Adriana Weisleder

Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders

Research Interests

Dr. Weisleder seeks to understand both the learning mechanisms and contexts that support language development in diverse sociocultural contexts, with a focus on children who are dual language learners. Her current work investigates interactions between bilingual experience and language processing in explaining trajectories of language development in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers.

adriana.weisleder@northwestern.edu
Adriana Weisleder Bio


Marcelo Worsley

Marcelo Worsley

Assistant Professor, Learning Sciences
Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Research Interests

Advancing society’s understanding of how students learn in complex learning environments by forging new opportunities for using multimodal technology

marcelo.worsely@northwestern.edu
Marcelo Worsely Bio