Staff

Lyan Albino (Boston) is a Research Assistant supporting SERP's Word Generation Program as well as other SERP initiatives in the Boston area. She is currently a graduate student at Harvard University focusing on human development and psychology. She earned her Bachelors in Psychology & Sociology from the University of Central Florida and worked as a suicide counselor. Lyan also worked for McGraw-Hill and supported the development of a variety of testing and measurement products. On a lighter note, Lyan is avidly involved in Geocaching - a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices.

Carole Vinograd Bausell (National Staff), SERP’s Chief Operating Officer, has broad experience in management, program evaluation, learning disabilities, literacy, and policy. Before coming to SERP, she worked for the publication Education Week where she directed numerous high profile projects and reports on K–12 education policy and outcomes – these included Quality Counts; Diplomas Count; and Technology Counts. She also managed Edweek's research center. In Baltimore, Carole oversaw the evaluation of high school reform on behalf of the Fund for Educational Excellence, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded initiative. Carole has served on panels and roundtables on children’s mental health and child welfare, coauthored a series of educational books for parents, and taught continuing quality improvement methodology to executives nationwide. She received her doctorate in education from the Johns Hopkins University.

Tina Cheuk (San Francisco) is the Assistant Director of the San Francisco Field Site for SERP. She is a Teach for America alumna who taught middle school science and language arts at the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Academy in the South Bronx, NY and founded KIPP King Collegiate High School as a Dean in the East Bay, CA. She is also a returned Peace Corps volunteer, working as a high school science teacher and teacher trainer in Ghana, West Africa. Tina has also been a research assistant at the Center for Urban School Improvement in Chicago where she studied how technology tools supported teaching and learning at the University of Chicago affiliated charter schools. She holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Education from Stanford University.

Phil Daro (San Francisco) is the Director of the San Francisco Field Site. He has also directed large scale teacher professional development programs for the University of California including the California Mathematics Project and the American Mathematics Project. His sixteen years at the University included six years directing projects to help states develop standards, accountability and testing systems. He has held leadership positions with the California Department of Education. Phil has served on many committees including: NAEP Validity Committee; RAND Mathematics Education Research Panel; College Board Mathematics Framework Committee; ACHIEVE Technical (Assessment) Advisory Group, Mathematics Work Group; Technical Advisory Committee to National Goals Panel for World Class Standards, National Governors Association; Title I Commission organized by Council of Chief State School Officers; Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council; California Public Broadcasting Commission; and The Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities (WASC). He has taught mathematics and is the father of three daughters.

Suzanne Donovan (National Staff) is Executive Director of the SERP Institute. In that capacity she is building a program of work in partnership with school districts, and anchored in classroom and school practice. She was primary author and co-editor of the two SERP reports: Strategic Education Research Partnership proposed the design and governance structure of the SERP Institute, and Learning and Instruction: A SERP Research Agenda details an illustrative research and development agenda directly tied to classroom practice. Suzanne has also directed the "How People Learn" project at the National Academies since 1999. She served as study director and editor of the most recent report in the series: How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom, which was published in 2005. She was also the study director and co-editor for the NRC report Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education, and was a co-editor of Eager to Learn: Educating our Preschoolers. She has a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley. Before joining the National Research Council, she was on the faculty of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Susan Eagle (National Staff) joined SERP as the Finance Director in February 2005. She began her career as an audit associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Deloitte & Touche, focusing on the non-profit industry. Upon graduating from business school, Susan worked as a senior management consultant for McKinsey & Company where she worked on Board-level strategic issues for companies in various industries. Susan received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She received a Bachelor of Science in Commerce, with distinction, from the McIntire School of the University of Virginia. Susan is also the mother of two sets of twins!

Matt Ellinger (National Staff) serves as the Director of Multimedia and Design. Matt's work prior to SERP includes time with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Stanford) where he developed multimedia records of teaching, administered elementary mathematics teacher training studies, and facilitated lesson study programs for Scholar Liping Ma. Matt has also done similar work with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and The Noyce Foundation. Matt consults for WestEd's Understanding Science Program as a materials developer and content specialist. Prior to entering the research world, Matt taught elementary & middle school and served as a school principal in El Cerrito, California. He holds a B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Texas and an M.A. in Adult Education from San Francisco State University.

Michelle Forman (Boston) is a doctoral candidate in education policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Research Associate for the SERP Boston Internal Coherence project. Her work focuses on building organizational capacity and collective efficacy beliefs in underperforming schools. Prior to joining the doctoral program Michelle was a high school English teacher in New York City and Oakland.

Inez Gomez (National Staff) is an Administrative Coordinator at SERP's Washington D.C. office. Her work includes planning and logistical support for events, day-to-day office administration, and projects as assigned by Executive Director, Suzanne Donovan. Prior to joining the SERP Team, she was an Event Planning Manager at the International Monetary Fund. She has a B.A in Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations and a Minor in Graphic Design from Marymount University.

Beverly Hoffmaster (National Staff) serves the organization as the Operations Manager, which includes financial management, grants administration, and human resources. She earned a degree in Industrial Management from Carnegie-Mellon University and went on to work in retail commerce for over twenty years prior to joining the SERP team. Her business background includes senior management positions at Finlay Fine Jewelry and The Imaginarium (an educational toy store). Beverly admits to being "crazy" for her dogs and enjoys connecting with family when not overseeing operations at SERP.

Joshua Lawrence (Boston) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research focuses on (1) understanding adolescent language and literacy development, and (2) creating and evaluating interventions and teaching methods to improve adolescent literacy outcomes. Josh has experience as a teacher and literacy coach in Boston Public Schools. Josh juggles fire in his free time.

Yan Liu (San Francisco) is the Assistant Director for Field Site Research at SERP Institute. Her research interests include mathematics cognition, instructional and curriculum design, teacher professional development, probabilistic and statistical reasoning, and video-based research methodology. Prior to SERP, Yan Liu was an Assistant Professor in Singapore’s National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. She worked at the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practices (www.crpp.nie.edu.sg) where she was a principal investigator of a number of research projects funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Education. She also taught graduate level and in-service courses at CRPP and the Mathematics and Mathematics Education Academic Group. Yan Liu received her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from Vanderbilt University. She was the recipient of the 2005 Otter Bassler Award for Excellence in Research, for her dissertation Teachers’ Understandings of Probability and Statistical Inference and Their Implications for Professional Development. Yan Liu’s work have been published in Cognition and Instruction, Statistics Education Research Journal, and Pedagogies.

Juliana Paré-Blagoev (National Staff) is the Assistant Director of SERP Institute. She has a long standing interest in effectively integrating educationally relevant research and educational practice. Before joining SERP, her primary research focus was on skill and language learning using a combination of brain and behavioral methodologies. This work was conducted with the explicit intent of hastening the translation of neuroimaging findings into results that are useful and testable in a classroom environment. Complementing her work at SERP, she is a founding Board Member of the International Mind Brain and Education Society whose mission it is to facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in all fields that are relevant to connecting mind, brain, and education in research, theory, and/or practice. Juliana received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Catherine Snow (Boston) is the SERP's Director of Research in Boston, As Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she carries out research on language and literacy development in monolingual and bilingual children. She chaired the committee that produced the National Research Council Report, “Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children” (1998), the RAND Reading Study Group that produced “Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension” (2002), and the National Research Council that produced Assessing Young Children: What, When and Why. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education. Her research focuses on the social-interactive origins of language and literacy skills, the ways in which oral language skills relate to literacy learning, the literacy development of English-Language Learners, and implications of research on language and literacy development for teacher preparation.

Claire White (Boston) directs the SERP's Word Generation Program developed in collaboration with the Boston Public Schools and coordinates other projects at SERP’s Boston Field Site. She is also an adjunct lecturer in the Teacher Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches courses on the language and literacy development of English language learners. Prior to this work, she worked as an education specialist at the Massachusetts Department of Education, in the Office of Language Acquisition and Academic Achievement providing training in ELL literacy issues to teachers, administrators and state education leaders. White received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.