Speakers
- Trudy Bers
- Victor Borden
- Chad Brown
- Wayne J. Camara
- Karen Froslid-Jones
- J. Joseph Hoey, IV
- Will Jarred
- Elizabeth A. Jones
- Bruce A. Kaplan
- Mary-Margaret Kerns
- Paula S. Krist
- Ida Lawrence
- Lydia Liu
- Walt MacDonald
- Susan Nissan
- David Payne
- Rich D. Roberts
- Emily J. Shaw
- Sandip Sinharay
- Jonathan Steinberg
- E. Rob Stirton
- Dawn Geronimo Terkla
- Kimberly Thompson
- Bill Wynne
- John W. Young
Trudy Bers
Trudy Bers is Executive Director of Research, Curriculum and Planning at Oakton Community College in the northern suburbs of Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois-Urbana, and holds an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, an A.M. in public law and government from Columbia University, and a B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Bers has been at her institution since it opened in 1970, demonstrating a certain shortcoming in mathematical computation abilities because she expected to stay just 3–5 years. At Oakton, she has been involved in a variety of projects, serves as executive assistant and special advisor to the president, and represents the College in a number of external organizations.
Bers' research interests include the community college, the assessment of student learning outcomes, and college choice for community college students and their parents. She is currently President of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges and has been President of the Association for Institutional Research, the National Community College Council for Research and Planning, and the Illinois Association for Institutional Research. Bers is former chair of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative Executive. She participates in a number of national advisory committees, including the Kansas Study faculty productivity project, University of Massachusetts Student Success Project, Improving Practitioner Knowledge to Improve Transfer Project at the University of Missouri, and the Joint Commission on Accountability Research (JCAR). As a data coach with the Achieving the Dream initiative, she works with community colleges developing new approaches to fostering student success. She was the external evaluator for a FIPSE-funded project for Loyola University, Chicago, about Community College Learning and Teaching and is on the faculty of the Data and Decisions Workshop co-sponsored by the Association for Institutional Research, American Association of Community Colleges and National Council for Community College Research and Planning. Bers has been published more than 45 times in professional journals, and made more than 50 presentations at professional conferences.
Victor Borden
Victor (Vic) Mark Haifleigh Borden, Ph.D. is Associate Vice President for University Planning, Institutional Research, and Accountability at Indiana University. He is also an Associate Professor of psychology within the Purdue School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and has adjunct appointments in the department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (Indiana University School of Education), the Indiana University School of Informatics, and IUPUI's University College.
Borden's primary research interests are in the areas of student progress and performance, enrollment management, and institutional and program effectiveness. He has published over 50 articles and book chapters, including the annual analysis of degrees conferred to students of color for Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. His professional activities include consulting and teaching workshops on accountability and improvement, program assessment, statistics, survey research and the use of technology for assessment, decision support and institutional analysis.
Borden has delivered more than 150 presentations and workshops throughout the U.S. and in Europe, Africa and Asia. He is an active contributor to several professional associations, most notably, the Association for Institutional Research, of which he is a Past President.
Chad Brown
Chad M. Brown, Ph.D., is the Dean of Health, Public Service and Service-Related Programs at Zane State College. In addition to his leadership of the division, Brown serves on the college's Team for Institutional Effectiveness, Data Driven Decision Making team, and provides leadership for a number of major initiatives at the school including the Achieving the Dream, Quickstart to College, and the Foundations of Excellence projects.
Brown also maintains an active research agenda focused on two-year college persistence and barriers to success for nontraditional students. He has presented for numerous professional organizations including the Association for Institutional Research, the Policy Center on the First Year of College, Achieving the Dream, the National Conference on the First Year Experience and Students in Transition, and the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development. Brown also serves as a Policy Center Advisory Team member and consultant for the Policy Center on the First Year of College and was recently selected to serve as a Quality Enhancement Plan lead-evaluator for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools reaffirmation process.
Brown received a bachelor's degree in athletic training from Capital University, a Master of Science in kinesiology from the University of Michigan, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in higher education leadership from Ohio University.
Wayne J. Camara
As Vice President for Research and Analysis at the College Board, Wayne Camara is responsible for managing research and assessment development for the current and revised SAT®, Advanced Placement Program and other assessments. He supervises 55 staff members, more than half of whom are doctoral level researchers and psychometricians, responsible for a variety of research, analysis and reporting for educational testing and curriculum programs.
He has served as the Project Director for state and federal testing/research contracts, and as an expert witness in legal proceedings involving selection, including Gratz v. Bollinger. Before joining the College Board in 1994, Camara served as Assistant Executive Director of Science at the American Psychological Association. At APA, he directed governance and scientific involvement in policy and federal advocacy initiatives in behavioral science research. He also directed the revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, and in 2006 was appointed as chair of the AERA/APA/NCME management committee overseeing the Standards and subsequent revisions and business decisions.
Camara directed testing policy at APA, assisting federal agencies in developing regulations (e.g., Civil Rights Act, ADA, Goals 2000, integrity testing) and testifying before Congress and state legislatures on a variety of issues related to testing. His principal areas of research are standards and professional practice in testing, test validity, fairness, testing accommodations, and ethical issues in testing.
Camara is a Fellow of APA (Divisions 1, 5, 14), SIOP, and past President of Division 5. He has also served on the Board of Directors for the National Council of Measurement in Education and is past chair of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP), chair of the U.S. Department of Defense's Technical Advisory Committee overseeing enlisted selection and assessment, on the research advisory boards for USC's Center for Enrollment Research Policy and Practice, and the NCAA and state technical advisory committees.
Karen Froslid-Jones
Karen Froslid-Jones is currently the Director of Institutional Research and Assessment at American University. She has more than 12 years of experience in assessment and has expertise in focus group and survey research.
Froslid-Jones oversees the institutions institutional assessment, including the assessment of student learning. Her recent research projects have focused on factors influencing student success and retention, the impact of freshmen experience programs, and assessment of student learning. She co-chaired AU's self-study steering committee for the university's Middle States re-accreditation and has been a plenary speaker and facilitator at Middle States training institutes. She has served as the assessment evaluator on a number of Middle States visiting teams. In 2004 she received the “Outstanding Service to the University Community” award.
J. Joseph Hoey, IV
J. Joseph Hoey, IV, Ph.D. is Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness at Savannah College of Art and Design. His responsibilities include regional and specialized accreditation, strategic planning, assessment of student learning, institutional research and academic program review.
Hoey is Past President of the Southern Association for Institutional Research (SAIR), Chair-Elect of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Professional Development Services Committee, and is both a frequent speaker and presenter on assessment, evaluation and accreditation issues at regional and national conferences. Hoey has served as a workshop presenter since 1999 for the SACS Commission on Colleges annual meeting and as an invited presenter at the SACS Summer Institute since 2003. He serves on accreditation reaffirmation teams for SACS and WASC.
His background includes development of an institutional effectiveness function at the Savannah College of Art and Design since 2006, eight years as the founding director of the Office of Assessment at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a prior five years in University Planning and Analysis at NC State University, and seven years in the North Carolina Community College System. His published research encompasses engineering program assessment, graduate program assessment, academic program review, building trust in assessment processes, alumni and employer feedback, validating student engagement research, community college transfer, developing online assessment data management systems, and evaluation of online academic programs.
Will Jarred
Will Jarred is Executive Director of Marketing for the Higher Education and School Assessments Division at ETS where he leads brand management for the division's array of products including the GRE® test and The Praxis Series. Will began his career at ETS in January 2003 as the Director of Strategic Marketing for ETS's English Language Learning products and services including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests.
Prior to ETS, Jarred held a variety of senior level marketing positions within educational publishing, including Pearson Education where he was Director of Marketing and Business Development for Longman, the English Language Learning division, and Simon and Schuster, where he was Director of New Media and Strategic Markets in the supplementary K-12 division.
Prior to his experience in publishing, Jarred was the Associate Director of Marketing, Membership and Educational Products for the National Association of Elementary School Principals where he launched the first online service targeting elementary school administrators in 1994. Jarred began his career at America Online where he managed creative direction and promotional writing for new software releases, company publications, direct mail projects and online forums and events.
Jarred holds a B.A. degree in communications from James Madison University, and is a member of the American Marketing Association.
Elizabeth A. Jones
Elizabeth A. Jones is a Professor of higher education leadership at West Virginia University (WVU). She has conducted assessment research supported by the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative that resulted in the publication of two books.
Jones served as the principal investigator of a general education assessment project supported by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Currently, she is working with colleagues Trudy Banta and Karen Black on a new assessment book that will be published in 2009 by Jossey-Bass.
Jones has chaired the general education assessment committee at WVU and offered numerous professional development seminars to both student affairs staff as well as faculty members. She has published numerous articles pertaining to assessment and has presented at national conferences. Jones is currently the Editor of the Journal of General Education published by Penn State Press.
Bruce A. Kaplan
Bruce Kaplan is a Director of Data Analysis and Computational Research in the Center for Data Analysis Research within the Research and Development Division at ETS. He earned his B.S. in applied mathematics and computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1976 and his M.S. in Statistics from Cornell University in 1979. He joined ETS upon his graduation from Cornell.
His recent work has concentrated on sampling and design aspects of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and various statistical issues for College Board's SAT® validity service, Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES). Additionally, his interests include variance estimation from complex sample surveys, and automated scoring techniques.
Mary-Margaret Kerns
Mary-Margaret Kerns is the Senior Director of the Validity Research & Services group and the Computer-Based Testing group in Research & Analysis at the College Board.
Kerns graduated from the Pennsylvania State University with a Ph.D. in educational psychology. Prior to joining the Research department at the College Board in 2000, she was an institutional research professional at an institution in the Massachusetts public higher education system.
Paula S. Krist
Paula S. Krist, Ph.D. is the Director of Operational Excellence and Assessment Support (OEAS) at the University of Central Florida. Krist coordinates and oversees all university level program assessment, survey and statistical support, and continuous quality improvement efforts. She joined UCF in 2004 after being Director of Institutional Research and Assessment at Florida Institute of Technology. During her 11 years at Florida Tech, Krist also was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Mathematics and Science Education department. In addition, she directed the Florida Tech Instructional Development seminars for graduate students and faculty and worked with the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence.
At UCF, Krist is actively involved in SACS, university and program and department-related assessment support activities. Her assessment activities include working closely with the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning (FCTL) to help faculty refine academic program level and General Education assessments. She continues to serve on graduate student committees at UCF.
Krist holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include assessment, teaching and learning, and individual differences factors in academic performance, and her teaching experience includes Research Design, Statistics, Educational Assessment and Effective Teaching at the College Level. She consults with many universities and colleges regarding effective teaching and assessment and frequently presents workshops at state, regional and national conferences.
Recently, Krist was a faculty member of the first Association for Institutional Research Assessment Institute. She is active in the Association for Institutional Research, the Southern Association for Institutional Research, and the Florida Association for Institutional Research.
Ida Lawrence
As Senior Vice President of ETS's Research & Development Division (R&D), Ida Lawrence is responsible for strategic, tactical and financial oversight of all functional areas within Research and Development. These areas include Research, Statistical Analysis and Assessment Development.
Lawrence began her career at ETS in the Statistical Analysis area, where she designed and directed measurement work for the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®) and the SAT®. Before her appointment to Senior Vice President in May 2004, she served as the Executive Director of the SAT and PSAT/NMSQT programs, the Director of Program Research in the Research and Development Division, and the Vice President of the Assessment Development Division.
Lawrence received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Barnard College, and a Master of Arts and a doctorate degree in educational psychology from New York University. She has published extensively in measurement journals on test equating and scaling, test design, and validity research. Lawrence received the Princeton YWCA Tribute to Women award in 2007.
Lydia Liu
Ou Lydia Liu is Associate Research Scientist at ETS's Foundational & Validity Research Center. Dr. Liu's education research includes multivariate item response modeling, validation of standardized testing programs, and gender differences on large-scale standardized math assessments.
Dr. Liu received bachelor's degrees in science and English from the University of Science and Technology of China, as well as a master's degree and a doctorate in quantitative methods and evaluation from the University of California, Berkeley.
Since joining ETS in 2006, Dr. Liu has worked as the principal investigator on a series of testing programs, including the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) test, the iSkills™ assessment, the TOEFL® iBT, the SIR II™ Student Instructional Report, the Major Field Tests (MFT) and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) test.
Dr. Liu has been published in Educational and Psychological Measurement, Applied Measurement in Education, Educational Assessment, Journal of Applied Measurement, Behavior Research Methods and Journal of Psychological Testing.
Walt MacDonald
Walt MacDonald serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Higher Education and School Assessments at ETS. In the Higher Education and School Assessments Division, MacDonald oversees the Teacher Licensure and Certification Programs, as well as the College and Graduate Programs. These programs include The Praxis Series™ assessments, educator examinations for the state of Texas, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards®, the Graduate Record Examinations® (GRE®) tests and the Major Field Tests. As the primary assessment contractor for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), ETS creates, delivers and scores state-of-the-art, standards-based performance assessments for Pre-K through 12th-grade teachers.
In his previous position as Vice President of College Board Programs, MacDonald was responsible for all College Board programs at ETS, including the Advanced Placement Program®, College-Level Examination Program®, SAT® and PSAT/NMSQT® tests. MacDonald joined ETS in 1984 as a Science Assessment Specialist, working for the former College Board Division. Since then, he has held many leadership positions at ETS. In 1987, he became ETS Director of Test Development for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a biennial project for the U.S. Department of Education.
In 1990, he became the Director of the Advanced Placement Program. He was promoted to Executive Director of that program in 1993. In 2002, MacDonald was named ETS's Associate Vice President of the College Board Programs, School and College Services Division. In that role, he assumed responsibility for ETS's day-to-day program operations for the College Board. MacDonald has worked as an adjunct professor of biology for The College of New Jersey. He was a member of the test development committee for the National Association of Biology Teachers' National Biology Test and served on its Committee on Standards and Assessment. He has also been a research associate for Rutgers University and an assistant professor of biology at Rider College. MacDonald is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Educational Research Association, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors and the National Council on Measurement in Education.
MacDonald earned a bachelor's degree in biology and a doctorate in ecology from Rutgers University. He has also completed postdoctoral work for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Susan Nissan
Susan Nissan is an Assessment Director for English Language Learning Assessments in the Research and Development division of Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey. She coordinated the design and development of the Listening section of TOEFL CBT and the new TOEFL iBT.
Nissan has worked on a variety of English language assessments during her 19 years at ETS. Prior to ETS, Susan coordinated the development of English as a Second Language courseware at the Center for Educational Technology in Ramat Aviv, Israel. She has taught ESL in Israel, Italy (Rome and Sassari, Sardinia), and the United States. She studied applied linguistics in undergraduate and graduate programs at Tel Aviv University.
David Payne
David Payne is the Associate Vice President for the Graduate and Four-Year Business Programs in the Higher Education Division at ETS. During his tenure, Payne oversaw the introduction of new content for the GRE® General Test, as well as the launch of a standardized non-cognitive skills evaluation for use in graduate admissions. He works closely with the GRE Board, graduate education organizations and colleges, universities and public education systems.
Payne also helps identify assessment needs in the graduate and professional markets — both domestic and international — and develop external relationships. His efforts to assist low-income, first-generation and underrepresented minority students interested in graduate education earned him the Distinguished Service Award in 2005 from the Council for Opportunity in Education/Council of Graduate Schools Joint McNair Committee.
Prior to joining ETS in 2003, Payne was Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at Binghamton University — SUNY. During his tenure at Binghamton, he also served as Director of Distance Education and was a tenured professor in the department of psychology. Payne holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in experimental psychology from Cortland College — SUNY and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Purdue University. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.
Payne has received numerous grants, fellowships and awards. He has published five books, nine book chapters and more than 100 articles, technical reports and papers. He served as Executive Director of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition and has served as a member of the organization's governing board. He has also been an editorial consultant for numerous psychology journals.
Richard D. Roberts
Richard D. Roberts is a Principal Research Scientist in the Center for New Constructs in the ETS's Research and Development Division, Princeton, NJ. A former National Research Council Fellow, he was also a Senior Lecturer at The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia from 1998 to 2003. His main areas of specialization are assessment and human individual differences, and he has conducted research on cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, personality, time management, test anxiety, motivation, self-confidence, sensory processes, aging, processing speed, situational judgement tests and human chronotype ("morningness" and "eveningness").
Roberts has published over 120 peer-review articles or invited book chapters on these topics in diverse subdisciplines including education, psychological assessment, industrial-organizational psychology, engineering and human factors. Co-edited books include Learning and Individual Differences: Content, Trait, and Process Determinants, An International Handbook of Emotional Intelligence, Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs, and Science of Emotional Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. His co-authored book Emotional Intelligence: Science and Myth, received an honorable mention in The Outstanding Professional and Scholarly Titles of 2002 by the Association of American Publishers. Roberts has just completed another book on this topic – a primer – for MIT Press.
Emily J. Shaw
Emily J. Shaw is an Assistant Research Scientist in Validity Research & Services within the Research & Analysis department of the College Board. She earned a B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University and an M.S.Ed. in counseling and personnel services and Ph.D. in educational psychology from Fordham University. Prior to joining the College Board four years ago, she worked in graduate admissions at Fordham University.
Shaw presently manages the development and maintenance of a national database of higher education outcomes for use in efficacy and validation research, primarily related to the SAT®. A large part of her role includes working with the Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES™) system users, assisting colleges and universities in conducting local admission and placement validity studies. Shaw is also responsible for conducting higher education research related to college admissions.
Sandip Sinharay
Sandip Sinharay is a Senior Research Scientist in the Research & Development Division at ETS in Princeton, NJ. He received his M. Stat in 1996 from the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University in 1998 and in 2001, respectively.
He received the Alicia Cascallar Award for an Outstanding Paper by an Early Career Scholar, and the Jason Millman Promising Measurement Scholar Award, both from the National Council on Measurement in Education, in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Sinharay received the Educational Testing Service Presidential Award in 2007. Recently, he co-edited Volume 26 on Psychometrics in the Handbook of Statistics series with C. R. Rao, a distinguished statistician who received the National Medal of Science in 2001. Sinharay has published research articles in several leading Psychometrics and Statistics journals. He is a member of the editorial board of two journals: Journal of Educational Measurement and Educational and Psychological Measurement. Sinharay's research interests include psychometrics, Bayesian statistics, model checking and model selection methods, statistical computing, missing data analysis, and applications of statistical methods to biological and social sciences.
Jonathan Steinberg
Jonathan Steinberg is a Senior Research Data Analyst in the Center for Data Analysis Research within the Research and Development Division at ETS. He earned his B.A. in statistics from the University of Rochester in 1999 and his M.A. in statistics from Columbia University in 2003. He joined ETS in 2005, after working for five years at Young & Rubicam Advertising in New York in the Consumer Research department.
Steinberg's recent work has concentrated on factor analysis in two domains. The first is exploring the dimensionality of state-based exams in different content areas and grade levels to assess structural similarities across different constituencies, namely students with disabilities and English-language learners. The second is investigating the viability of noncognitive assessments that can be transformed or used in operational studies or as products for various audiences (e.g., middle school-age students, community college students). Additionally, his interests include longitudinal analysis and segmentation techniques.
E. Rob Stirton
E. Rob Stirton is the Director of Institutional Research for Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan. He has 15 years of experience conducting institutional research, assessment and strategic planning in higher education.
Prior to his current position at Schoolcraft, Stirton spent five years analyzing and interpreting data for a private business. He earned a Master of Arts degree in educational management and development and a bachelor's degree in liberal arts. Stirton serves as a member of the Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments Data Advisory Committee and was recently invited to serve on the Board of the Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange.
Dawn Geronimo Terkla
Dawn Geronimo Terkla is an Associate Provost at Tufts University. As Associate Provost, Terkla oversees the management of the Office of Institutional Research & Evaluation (OIR&E). She also provides guidance on issues relating to institutional research, outcomes assessment and evaluation as well as critical management information to senior administrators. In addition, Terkla is the University Accreditation Liaison Officer. Her research interests include college-choice decisions, retention, management information and assessment and evaluation.
Terkla has held several leadership positions, including President of both the North East Association for Institutional Research and the Association for Institutional Research and Chair of the NPEC Executive Committee. She has served on the HEDS Board of Directors, the UCLA/ACE Cooperative Institutional Research Program Advisory Committee, NAICU Commission on Policy Analysis and several NPEC technical review panels.
Terkla earned her doctorate at Harvard University, an MPP from the University of California Berkeley and a bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Kimberly Thompson
Kimberly Thompson is director of assessment and college research at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. She has worked in the institutional research, planning and effectiveness area for eight years. Prior to that time, Thompson was a consultant specializing in training and organizational development where she designed continuous quality improvement and training programs for a variety of government and private organizations. Thompson has been an active member of the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) serving as an IPEDS trainer, forum track reviewer, forum facilitator, and faculty member during the recent AIR Assessment Institute.
Bill Wynne
Bill Wynne is a Product Specialist in the Higher Education Division at ETS. In addition to consulting with institutions of higher education regarding their assessment needs, Bill has led countless panel presentations and roundtable discussions on the subject of responsible assessment and developing an effective institutional assessment plan at both national assessment and regional accreditation conferences.
In his 19 years with ETS, Bill has also served as Product Manager for many of ETS's higher education products and services, including the Major Field Tests (MFT), Academic Profile, Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP), and the Student Instructional Reports (SIR II™).
John W. Young
John W. Young is a Senior Research Scientist in the Center for Validity Research at ETS where he presently co-directs the research initiative on assessments and products for English language learners. Prior to returning to ETS in 2006, he was a faculty member for 17 years in the Educational Statistics, Measurement and Evaluation program at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Young received his Ph.D. in educational measurement from Stanford University in 1989, and in 1999 he received the Early Career Contribution Award from the American Educational Research Association's Committee on Scholars of Color in Education for his research on academic achievement and minority students. Young has published in the following academic journals: Applied Measurement in Education, Assessment in Education, College & University, Journal of College Admission, Journal of Educational Measurement, Research in Higher Education and Review of Educational Research.
