Laura Hamilton

Laura Hamilton is a senior director at American Institutes for Research, where she leads the Center on Advancing Measurement and Assessment. This interdisciplinary center promotes high-quality, innovative approaches to measurement and assessment, generating evidence to inform policy and practice in education, workforce, and family and community development. Hamilton also leads and conducts research on education policy, teaching, ed tech, youth development, and civic learning, with a focus on producing evidence-based guidance for practitioners and policymakers.

Before joining AIR, Hamilton served as associate vice president of the Research Centers in the Research and Measurement Sciences area at ETS, leading a portfolio of research on assessment and learning related to K-12 and postsecondary education, workforce development, and language assessment. She also oversaw the technical review process at ETS in her role as Eignor Executive Editor. She previously held the distinguished chair in learning and assessment at RAND, where she co-directed the American Educator Panels and directed RAND’s Center on Social and Emotional Learning Research.

Hamilton has served on numerous committees and panels including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Developing Indicators of Education Equity, the Committee to Revise the AERA/APA/NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the Research Advisory Council for CASEL, the Alliance for Learning Innovation Task Force on Inclusive R&D, and technical advisory committees for a number of state assessment programs. She has held several editorial roles, most recently as an associate editor of the journals Educational Researcher and Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy. She also received the Joseph A. Zins Distinguished Scholar Award for SEL Research.