Heather J. Erwin currently serves as a TA Consultant with AIR. Dr. Erwin previously directed the University of Iowa’s Liberal Arts Beyond Bars (UI LABB) college in prison program and served as a senior advisor to the Executive Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Additionally, Dr. Erwin co-founded the ...
Karen Francis is a vice president and the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at AIR. Dr. Francis leads AIR’s overall DEI efforts through the implementation of the DEI framework and strategic pillars focused on workforce and work environment; cultural and linguistic competence; identity, brand, and thematic research; and growth ...
Dawn Dolby is a principal technical assistance consultant specializing in district and school improvement services. Dolby has nearly 25 years of educational experience as a teacher, professional development trainer, and school improvement specialist. At Learning Point Associates, she provided technical assistance for states and districts in need of improvement, worked ...
Bo Zhu is a senior researcher at AIR, with extensive experiences with educator effectiveness projects and student outcome analysis at both state and district levels. At AIR, she contributes to the design and implementation of program evaluations and research studies, and develops quantitative data-collection instruments such as surveys. She also ...
Toni M. Smith is a managing researcher at AIR where she directs research and development projects focused on mathematics instruction and teacher professional learning.
Dr. Smith currently directs the development and experimental testing of a virtual coaching program designed to improve the alignment of teachers’ instruction to state standards funded by ...
Maria Payri is a researcher in the Youth, Family, and Community Development program at AIR. Payri has over 10 years of experience as an evaluator with expertise in qualitative research and survey design for large-scale federal studies such as the National Household Education Study (NHES), where she serves as qualitative ...
Carmen Martínez is a researcher with 18 years of experience in a range of national, state, and local research and evaluation projects in the domains of of early education and intervention, programs for at-risk and culturally diverse students, closing the achievement gap for low-income and minority students; and policies and ...
Andrew Wayne is a managing researcher at AIR. He develops, supervises, and leads work designed to improve K-12 education.
Dr. Wayne’s main line of work focuses on K-12 teacher professional learning. Over the last two decades, he conducted groundbreaking studies of professional learning programs and their impact on teacher and student ...
Shannon L. Russell is a senior researcher at AIR. She has over 10 years of experience conducting school-based research with expertise in adolescent and child social development as well as methodological strengths in survey development and quantitative analysis. Currently, Dr. Russell provides expert support for multiple longitudinal studies conducted by ...
Jessica Heppen, a nationally recognized expert in education research, policy, and practice, is the president & CEO of AIR. Dr. Heppen been with AIR for 20 years and, in that time, has held several key roles during her tenure.