Whitney Cade is a senior researcher at AIR. She currently supports multiple projects, including two Institute for Education Science grants and the Regional Education Laboratories Southwest. Her recent work focuses on understanding the impacts of 8th grade algebra on school trajectories and college readiness, evaluating UTeach teacher characteristics and program ...
Jessica Heppen, a nationally recognized expert in education research, policy, and practice, is the president & CEO of AIR. Dr. Heppen been with AIR for 20 years and, in that time, has held several key roles during her tenure.
Julie Jacobson Vann has more than 40 years of experience in health services that spans the delivery of public health and patient care services, health services and Medicaid managed care administration, research and evaluation, and academic teaching. More than 20 of those years have involved planning, managing and directing health ...
Bobbi Newman is a principal researcher and director of AIR’s practice area for standards and assessments. She has more than 15 years of experience in research and evaluation of school reform efforts. Dr. Newman has worked at every level of the education system, from the classroom to the state. As ...
Mary Kay Dugan is a managing technical assistant consultant at AIR. She is passionate about identifying evidence-based promising practices and translating them into policies and effective programs focused on underserved populations including disadvantaged youth and young adults. Dugan has over 30 years of experience helping federal, state, and local governments ...
Linda Lin is a researcher at AIR with experience in designing and conducting education research and evaluation studies. Dr. Lin specializes in experimental and quasi-experimental study design and quantitative methodology, with a particular interest in casual inference methods, multilevel modeling and data mining. She also has extensive experience in developing ...
Christal Ramos is a principal researcher in the health division. She has over 16 years of experience implementing and studying policies and interventions to improve health equity, particularly for people with Medicaid or who are uninsured, and for communities of color. She is experienced in leading mixed-methods research, evaluation and ...
Kirsten Firminger is a principal researcher at AIR. With a passion for understanding consumers’ perspectives of health care, she has worked extensively on gathering information from patients about their care experiences. She is an expert at developing and testing materials for use by the public, including presenting information on health ...
Jaleh Behroozi Soroui is the director of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) at AIR. She directs PIAAC team at AIR in providing expertise, technical assistance, and management support for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education in the development ...
Chelsea Newton is a TA consultant in the Human Services Division at AIR. In this role, she provides assistance to states and territories as it relates to compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. She also serves as a training and technical assistance consultant with the CDC's DASH ...