Susan Bowles Therriault

Susan Bowles Therriault is an Institute Fellow at AIR. For over 20 years, she has led and conducted applied research studies that focus on state and federal education efforts to build the capacity of districts and schools to increase learning opportunities and improve outcomes for all students. 

Dr. Therriault leads the design and implementation of research plans that address critical education policy challenges. Through her work, she has helped states and districts improve K-12 education systems, focus on continuous improvement, and use evidence to inform decision-making about what works in the classroom.

She serves as director of the Strategic Funding and Finance Center, a Department of Education funded content center, providing states and school districts with guidance and information about school budgeting and finance. She is the co-principal investigator for the Career Technical Education Research Network, which focuses on increasing evidence and improving the rigor of research on critical CTE issues including work-based learning, career development and pathways. 

Dr. Therriault is the principal investigator of a project for the Gates Foundation, which is building a field of research on K-12 education systems response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support states, districts, and schools in developing effective responses to pandemic-like disruptions in the future. She also leads an Education Innovation Research Grant focused on scaling an Early Warning Intervention Monitoring System designed to improve student engagement, address chronic absenteeism, and boost graduation rates. 

Dr. Therriault was also the principal investigator of the Research on Education Strategies to Advance Recovery and Turnaround (RESTART) Network focusing on identifying and building evidence-based strategies to support students’ post-pandemic academic recovery. 

For eight years, Dr. Therriault led, designed, and implemented the Massachusetts school and district quality reviews and needs assessments. This work has helped educators across the state make data-informed decisions to support schools identified for improvement. By applying rigorous research methods to the monitoring processes, she ensured that the data were reliable across school sites and over time. In turn, her work has paved the way for several research studies that establish key evidence for improvement strategies. 

Dr. Therriault is the former director of the Region 1 Comprehensive Center, which provided support to Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. She also led the federal College and Career Readiness and Success (CCRS) Center, from 2015 to 2019. Dr. Therriault also led a Northeast and Islands Regional Education Laboratory partnership with the Massachusetts state education agency and with Puerto Rico conducting research on high leverage instructional and school level strategies for improving schools and student outcomes. She is an advisor on the Southwest Regional Education Laboratory partnership with Texas, focusing on building evidence to support low-performing schools.

Dr. Therriault is an executive committee board member of the Knowledge Alliance and a member of the Massachusetts Conditions of Education Task Force. She served for six years as a member-at-large of the Massachusetts School and District Accountability and Support Advisory Board and for seven years on her local school board. Her work has been cited by NPR’s Marketplace, The Washington Post, and many others.