Megan Austin

Megan Austin is a principal researcher in the Human Services Division at AIR, focusing on secondary and postsecondary education. Her primary responsibilities include designing, leading, and reporting on large-scale research and evaluation studies. She is principal investigator of an IES-funded study Increasing Equity in Advanced Course Taking Through Automatic Enrollment and Automatic Notification, which examined the effects of district academic acceleration policies on enrollment and success in advanced high school courses and conducted a large-scale randomized controlled trial of an automatic notification tool for a large student information system. She is evaluation lead for a $45 million NCEE evaluation of transition supports for youth with disabilities, for which she has designed data collection instruments, developed OMB packages, and developed the analysis plan. She also is co-authoring an NCEE-funded report on states’ and districts’ implementation of career and technical education under Perkins V. 

Dr. Austin co-led the creation of MetaReviewer, a collaboration-focused software program for conducting evidence syntheses funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the AIR Opportunity Fund. Dr. Austin is principal investigator for the current NSF grant supporting MetaReviewer’s ongoing development and was project director for a prior NSF-funded project Effects of the Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation Instructional Model: Systematic Review and Innovation Through New Meta-Analysis Methodology. 

Previously, Dr. Austin provided content and methodological leadership for an IES-funded meta-analysis of the effects of college financial aid programs and an IES-funded study using RCT and regression discontinuity methods to examine the effects of corequisite remediation in Texas community colleges. Dr. Austin also was the Task 6 (Applied Research) lead for REL Southeast at AIR, responsible for managing the design, development, and implementation of research studies, and she was PI and co-PI for multiple REL Midwest and REL Southeast studies using statewide administrative data to examine state policies and programs in Indiana, Minnesota, and Georgia. She also has conducted research on school choice programs and policies, including private school vouchers and charter schools. 

Dr. Austin has extensive experience in quantitative research methods and data analysis, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs, advanced regression methods, hierarchical linear modeling, and meta-analysis. She is a What Works Clearinghouse Certified Reviewer in Group Design Standards (Version 5.0) and Regression Discontinuity Design (Version 4.0) and led a community of practice on identifying and implementing evidence-based practices for the Office of State Support at the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Austin’s research has published in Sociology of Education, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, AERA Open, Review of Educational Research, Education Finance and Policy, and several prominent edited volumes, including the Handbook of the Sociology of Education in the 21st Century, Handbook of Research on School Choice, and School Choice at the Crossroads; and has been covered in Education Week, U.S. News and World Report, EducationNext, and Psychology Today.