Julie Kochanek

Julie Reed Kochanek is Chief Program Officer and Senior Vice President at AIR and a member of AIR’s executive leadership team. In this role, she provides strategic leadership of AIR’s Program Office, which includes a large portfolio of research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects across a broad array of policy areas, including Education, Health, Human Services, International Development and Workforce Development. 

The Program Office includes staff with a diverse array of expertise and experience who work with federal agencies, state and local governments, philanthropies, non-profits, and business and industry. Under Dr. Kochanek’s leadership, the Program Office staff focuses on mission-driven work, with the goal of working with partners to generate and use evidence to address urgent challenges and increase opportunities for all.

Dr. Kochanek has more than 25 years of experience as an education researcher and policy expert, with a special focus on bridging research and practice. She has worked with education providers to develop research agendas that rely on the power of data and evidence to change policy and practice and improve student outcomes. She also has experience steering knowledge translation, research dissemination, and technical assistance efforts with school districts across the country to help students succeed in the classroom and beyond.

She has been with AIR since 2014. Before joining AIR’s senior leadership, Dr. Kochanek served as director of the federally funded Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest and leader of AIR’s Education Systems and Policy program area. As REL Midwest director, she led a team of researchers to design and implement structures and procedures that addressed high-priority regional needs, such as college and career readiness, narrowing opportunity gaps, and teacher preparation and performance. She has helped practitioners use evidence to inform decision making, with the goal of increasing access to learning opportunities and improving the quality of classroom instruction for all students. She became a vice president at AIR in 2021 and senior vice president in 2023. Prior to joining AIR, she was researcher at EDC and Learning Point Associates.

Dr. Kochanek also has served as principal investigator on several National Science Foundation projects designed to improve access to computer science instruction; a William T. Grant-sponsored study of the use of evidence in school districts’ decision making; the evaluation of TNTP’s Teach Initiative; and an evaluation of Indiana’s full-day kindergarten policy. Earlier in her career, Dr. Kochanek worked at the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago where her work focused on trust and school productivity.