Jenni Fipaza
Jenni Fipaza is a senior communications specialist at AIR. A veteran problem-solver, Fipaza draws on ten years of experience in communications, social science research, and education technical assistance to improve project outcomes, strengthen coordination across teams, and integrate client and stakeholder feedback into each project’s continuous improvement process. Fipaza has built and refined effective communications systems across a diverse range of national, regional, state, and district projects.
At the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders, Fipaza created an efficient, flexible communications system that ensures a high-level of consistency in branding, relevance, and usefulness for all projects and deliverables, while also ensuring feedback loops with key stakeholders and adherence to AIR’s rigorous quality assurance process. As the center’s communications lead, she crafts the center’s annual strategic communications plan and editorial calendar, drives development of the center’s online content, website, digital media, and social channels, and implements a dissemination plan tailored to specific audiences for each product and project.
At the Midwest Comprehensive Center, Fipaza collaborated with the center’s leadership team to develop and refine a project management and communications system centered on direct, regular communication with project leads, ongoing consultation with state education agency clients, and close, transparent monitoring of each project’s progress in meeting expectations regarding capacity building and impact, including outcomes at the regional, district, and school level. On both centers, Fipaza coordinates closely with the center’s leadership and evaluation teams in preparing and updating the center’s annual management plan, monthly project reports and reviews, as well as all annual evaluations and performance reviews for the U.S. Department of Education.
Fipaza held previous roles as project manager for AIR’s Education Policy Center while also providing technical assistance on state and district-level reform efforts for teacher and leader talent development systems in eleven states/territories (Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Nevada, New Jersey, Washington, Wisconsin, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). She led or supported projects on standards and rubric development and alignment, qualitative analysis and incorporation of stakeholder feedback into design processes, developing observation tools, training and implementation materials. Fipaza is an expert in conducting and using qualitative research, including semi-structured interviews and focus groups in both evaluation studies and technical assistance.