American Institutes for Research

Sean P. “Jack” Buckley is senior vice president at AIR. He leads AIR’s Research and Evaluation area where he oversees projects across our entire range of subject areas including education, health, and the workforce both in the United States and internationally, always with the goal expanding our knowledge about how best to improve people’s lives, particularly the disadvantaged.

Dr. Buckley has a deep background in applied statistics and education research. Before joining AIR, he helped lead the redesign of the SAT at the College Board, where he served as senior vice president of research and was responsible for all research and psychometrics across their entire range of products and services. Before that, he served as Commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). In that role he was responsible for the measurement of all aspects of U.S. education, including conducting the National Assessment of Educational Progress and coordinating U.S. participation in international assessments. While at NCES he also acted as a senior technical adviser to Department of Education leadership and co-chair of its Data Strategy team. Additionally, he served as Deputy Commissioner of NCES earlier in his career.

Dr. Buckley is known for his research on school choice—particularly charter schools—and on statistical methods for public policy and education. He has researched and taught applied statistics as a tenured associate professor at New York University and as an assistant professor of education research, measurement, and evaluation at Boston College. A former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer and nuclear reactor engineer, he holds doctoral and master’s degrees in Political Science from SUNY Stony Brook and a bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard.