Areas of Interest

• The role of social context in high school reform and student achievement.
• The interaction between educational policy and teaching practice.

Keyword Interest

• School Reform
• Social Context of Schools
• Teaching Practice
• Student Achievement
• School Choice

Current Research Topic/Field-Based Project

Research Topic:
Investigation of a project examining the scaling up of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) for young readers with a randomized design.
• Exploring factors related to teachers' fidelity of implementation of the PALS program and its effect on student outcomes.
• Exploring factors related to the sustainability of PALS and teachers' decisions to continue use of the PALS program after their involvement in the main study is completed.

Research Topic:
Research assistant for the National Center on School Choice, Competition, and Achievement.
• Examining achievement gains in charter and regular public schools and how these gains are mediated by organizational and instructional conditions.

Former Experience

• Assistant Language Teacher in Japanese public junior high schools.
• Social studies teacher in public schools in Tennessee.

Education

• M.S. (2003): Secondary Education, University of Tennessee
• B.A. (1998): History, University of Tennessee