American Institutes for Research

Shannon Lasserre-Cortez is a senior researcher at AIR. Dr. Lasserre-Cortez’s current research interests and areas of expertise include longitudinal research and evaluation, dropout prevention, and early childhood education. She also has extensive experience as a methodologist on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research and evaluation studies.

In her current position Dr. Lasserre-Cortez serves as the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest alliance researcher for the New Orleans Charter School research alliance and the Arkansas Prekindergarten Research Alliance. Previously she was the project director for the Integrated Longitudinal Data System at the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In this role, she conducted research focused on early childhood education, literacy, dropout prevention, and workforce development. She also worked as lead research methodologist and analyst on other Picard Center projects including early childhood programs and family and poverty studies. She also has experience as an elementary and middle school teacher and as a research analyst for the Louisiana Department of Education, Quality Educators and Accountability Divisions.