Provides services and technical assistance for students so they benefit from research-based curricula taught in safe environments.

Produces and disseminates information to provide motivation and tools to enable individuals to make informed decisions about health issues.

Develops and implements education testing programs that benefit students, parents and public officals.

Works with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the government's primary source for collecting and analyzing data about public education.

Helps to provide all children with access to a quality education, and empowers people, organizations, and communities to bring about social change.

Is committed to helping clients improve the effectiveness of their workforce through a wide range of management, organizational, and business improvement efforts.

Produces, maintains and disseminates systematic reviews of the effects of social and behavioral interventions.

Maria Stephens

Senior Research Analyst

Maria Stephens is a Senior Research Analyst in the Education and Human Development Program at AIR. During her ten-year tenure, she has gained extensive experience in providing analytic, writing, and other technical support for projects, with a focus in recent years on coordinating international activities in the area of assessment. In particular, Ms. Stephens has been heavily involved in projects to provide technical support to the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) International Activities Program (IAP), especially in their participation in the OECD International Indicators of Education Systems (INES) Project.

Ms. Stephens both co-directs AIR’s technical support contract with NCES/IAP and manages the support provided to the group within INES that is focused on measuring student outcomes. She also manages tasks for technical support to the International Affairs Office at the U.S. Department of Education and leads an activity to inventory what developing countries are doing to measure student outcomes for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Ms. Stephens has written or co-authored many reports, including most recently a chapter in the book Key Competencies for a Successful Life and a Well-Functioning Society and a primer for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on measuring learning outcomes in developing countries, as well as the earlier report for IA/OUS, From Students of Teaching to Teachers of Students: Teacher Induction Around the Pacific Rim.