Experts in their field, principal investigators are responsible for leading the development of intervention and topic reports for a particular topic area. Click on the topic area name below to read more about the area's principal investigator.

Roberto Agodini, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Elementary School Math)
Roberto Agodini (Ph.D., Economics and Education, 1997, Columbia University) is a senior economist at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.  He is currently the project director and principal investigator of the Evaluation of Mathematics Curricula—a large-scale random assignment evaluation for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that compares the effectiveness of four different early elementary school math curricula on developing student math skills. Dr. Agodini also has played key roles in other recent education studies, including as project director for an ED study examining the effects of secondary vocational education on student outcomes and as deputy director for a large-scale random assignment study of the effects of computer software designed to improve student achievement.

Currently, Dr. Agodini is a Technical Review Panel member for ED's National Evaluation of the GEAR-UP Program and for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Data on Vocational Education. His other professional activities include serving as a referee for peer-reviewed journals, including the Economics of Education Review, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Teachers College Record, and World Bank Economic Review. In addition, he published an article in the Review of Economics and Statistics that assessed the ability of nonexperimental methods to produce valid estimates of the effectiveness of education programs.

Jill Constantine, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Beginning Reading and Deputy Director of the WWC)
Jill Constantine (Ph.D., Economics, University of Pennsylvania) is a senior economist and associate director of research at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Her expertise includes using random assignment, matching procedures such as propensity scoring, and advanced statistical modeling.

Dr. Constantine, who joined Mathematica in 2001, also directed the firm's evaluation of Talent Search, one of the federal TRIO programs designed to improve access to college for low-income students. She is currently overseeing Mathematica's study of the efficacy of different teacher preparation methods in contributing to the academic achievement of elementary school students. She has conducted impact and statistical analyses on several large-scale projects, including the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project, which focused on the cognitive and socioemotional outcomes of young children and the parenting skills of their parents.

Dr. Constantine has published in and serves as a reviewer for a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Industrial Relations, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Review of African American Education. Before joining Mathematica, Dr. Constantine was an assistant professor at Williams College.

Russell Gersten, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, English Language Learners)
Russell Gersten (Ph.D., Special Education, University of Oregon) is executive director of Instructional Research Group, a nonprofit educational research institute, as well as professor emeritus of the College of Education at the University of Oregon. His main areas of expertise include instructional research on English language learners (ELLs), reading comprehension research, and evaluation methodology. In 2002, Dr. Gersten received the Distinguished Special Education Researcher Award from the American Educational Research Association's Special Education Research Division. He recently was appointed to the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a presidential committee created to develop research-based policy in mathematics for American schools.

Dr. Gersten has more than 150 publications in scientific journals such as Review of Educational Research, American Educational Research Journal, Reading Research Quarterly, Educational Leadership, and Exceptional Children. He is the senior author of a forthcoming Best Practice Guide for Teaching ELLs and is currently the principal investigator of three large Institute of Education Sciences (IES) projects involving randomized trials in the areas of Reading First professional development, reading comprehension research, and early mathematics curricula.

Susanne James-Burdumy, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Adolescent Literacy)
Susanne James-Burdumy (Ph.D., Economics, 1999, The Johns Hopkins University) is associate director of research at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and has spent her career conducting rigorous evaluations of educational programs and interventions. Dr. James-Burdumy has led research teams on a number of national evaluations for the United States Department of Education including a thorough assessment of the impact of reading comprehension interventions on student outcomes, and the impact of the Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers program on students — the first large national random assignment study of afterschool programs.

Currently, Dr. James-Burdumy is the Principal Investigator of a U.S. Department of Education impact evaluation of mandatory-random student drug testing programs. She has also contributed to studies of charter school strategies, student social and character development, and high school reform. Dr. James-Burdumy has authored numerous reports and journal articles based on quantitative research, including two recently published papers on the impact of the 21st Century afterschool program on students (one in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis and the other in Economic Inquiry). In addition, she published an article in the premier economics journal, Journal of Labor Economics, on the effects of maternal employment on children's educational outcomes.

Gary W. Ritter, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Middle School Math)
Gary W. Ritter (Ph.D., Educational Policy, University of Pennsylvania) is an associate professor of education and public policy and holder of the Endowed Chair in Education Policy in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He is the director of the Office for Education Policy, which serves as a resource to state policy makers by translating research findings into accessible language. Dr. Ritter’s research activities focus on program evaluation of school-based interventions, as well as school finance and accountability-based school reform.

Dr. Ritter's work has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Education Finance and Policy, Journal of Education Finance, Journal of Research in Education, International Journal of Testing, Georgetown Public Policy Review, and Education Next. He has recently completed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effectiveness of volunteer tutoring programs in elementary schools for the Campbell Collaboration.

Christine Ross, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Early Childhood Education)
Christine Ross (Ph.D., Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison) is a senior economist at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Her research focuses on the effects of early childhood interventions on the development of young children at educational risk. Her research has included Head Start; state child care subsidy programs; state prekindergarten programs; and other early education settings for infants, toddlers, and preschool-age children.

Dr. Ross is directing a systematic review of research on preschool classroom practices and other strategies that could be used by Head Start programs to improve child outcomes. She conducted an analysis of impacts on teacher practices and classroom environments for the national Early Reading First evaluation, a federal program to enhance literacy and language components of preschools. Dr. Ross also conducted the analysis of child and family impacts for the Early Head Start national evaluation. For the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2006 cohort, she is examining children's development in their first year of Head Start.

Dr. Ross has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, including Child Development, Demography, Developmental Psychology, and The Future of Children. Prior to joining Mathematica, Dr. Ross worked as a research associate for the National Academy of Sciences and as associate analyst for the Congressional Budget Office.

Robert G. Wood, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator, Dropout Prevention)
Robert G. Wood (Ph.D., Economics, University of Michigan) is a senior economist at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., where he has worked since 1994. He has conducted numerous random assignment evaluations of education programs serving disadvantaged youth, with a particular focus on dropout prevention. The evaluations include the Student Dropout Demonstration Assistance Program (SDDAP) evaluation and the Upward Bound evaluation for the U.S. Department of Education; the Alternate Schools Demonstration for the U.S. Department of Labor; and Ohio's Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) program. Dr. Wood also has led research studies for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services examining strategies for improving the educational and other outcomes of teenage parents.

Dr. Wood has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Children and Youth Services Review, Contemporary Economic Policy, and Social Services Review. Prior to joining Mathematica, Dr. Wood worked as a research associate at MDRC.

The topic area Character Education is not producing reports at this time.