Janice Esau Keizer is a senior technical assistance consultant with the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest. In this position, she leads, coordinates, and facilitates the work of the Arkansas and New Mexico PreK Research Alliances as part of the REL Southwest work. She serves as the spokesperson for REL Southwest ...
David Bamat is a senior researcher in the Education Statistics program at AIR. Dr. Bamat’s primary responsibilities include leading and supporting NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) research projects. His work focuses on studying and leveraging statistical methods to overcome small sample limitations in large-scale assessment (LSA) research. It also ...
Niu Gao is a principal researcher at AIR specializing in K-12 education policy. Her current work focuses on COVID-19 and education, and she is leading multiple projects to examine the impact of the pandemic on K-12 education and identify effective strategies to help students recover—and recover equitably. Her other areas ...
Christopher A. Cody is a principal researcher at AIR, where he works on the Education Statistics Services Institute Network project as director of the postsecondary administrative data division task. As director of the postsecondary administrative data division project, Dr. Cody also serves as a survey director for the Integrated Postsecondary ...
Tammy Kolbe is a principal researcher at AIR, specializing in evaluating the resources and costs associated with effectively implementing policies and programs in PK-16 educational organizations. A particular focus of her work has been funding and costs for special education programs for children with disabilities, having led multiple projects that ...
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.
Lynn Bajorek is a principal TA consultant with AIR. She has over 20 years of experience supporting continuous improvement across all levels of the public workforce system. Bajorek works closely with state and regional clients to design and deliver strategic planning, change management, and technical assistance and training solutions that directly address their unique workforce development ...
Robyn Madison is a senior technical assistance consultant in the Education Systems and Policy program at AIR. Her primary responsibilities include supporting many AIR project teams with advancing diversity-equity-inclusion and cultural and linguistic competence through their work with each other as colleagues and with our external constituency. Dr. Madison works ...
Elizabeth Spier is a principal researcher at AIR. She has over 20 years of experience designing and managing large-scale, policy-relevant studies examining the effectiveness of programs, and interventions designed to improve developmental and educational outcomes for children. Her expertise includes child development, safe and supportive learning environments, child and family ...
Susan Bowles Therriault is an Institute Fellow at AIR focusing on AIR’s K-12 Systemic Improvement Portfolio of work. For over 20 years, she has led and conducted research that focuses on state and federal education efforts to build the capacity of high-needs districts and schools to improve outcomes and increase ...