My career in education research
I’ve spent twenty years (in two separate stints) as a researcher at Educational Testing Service, where I now hold the title of Distinguished Presidential Appointee. I started at ETS after earning my doctorate in Quantitative Methods in Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and then holding a postdoctoral fellowship at the Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My other post-PhD position was a professorship at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I taught classes in measurement, statistics, and educational testing. But my career in education actually began long before I earned a Ph.D. During the 1970s, I received my teacher certification and worked in teaching and counseling positions with children, adolescents, and adults. These experiences helped to broaden my perspective on the role of tests and measurement. My recent research at ETS has focused on test validity and fairness and on ways to improve score reporting. In addition, I have just completed several years of research on the college admissions process, which is the topic of my 2017 book, Who Gets In? Strategies for Fair and Effective College Admissions.