Mary Kay Dugan is a managing technical assistant consultant at AIR. She is passionate about identifying evidence-based promising practices and translating them into policies and effective programs focused on underserved populations including disadvantaged youth and young adults. Dugan has over 30 years of experience helping federal, state, and local governments ...
AIR is investigating the causes of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy within the Black community. By examining conversations on “Black Twitter” about the COVID-19 vaccine, our findings can help inform timely communication strategies to address vaccine distrust among Black Americans and create more effective outreach campaigns. ...
AIR awarded a $500,000 grant to Impact Network, a nonprofit seeking to make high-quality education in Zambia sustainable. Impact Network will use the funds to develop new intervention programs and strengthen existing work before expanding its eSchool 360 model in the southern African nation.
Smallholder farmers rely on crops for income and food security, but their ability to generate income and maintain food security is threatened by a number of factors. Kenya’s Plantwise program is a global initiative that provides smallholder farmers with vital information on the maintenance of crop health and environmentally sustainable ...
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are bringing about a paradigm shift in what it means to be a reader, and in how education systems must be restructured to support children’s acquisition of comprehension and critical reading skills. AIR is providing the Ministry of Education in each country with a set of measurable, ...
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.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that focuses on 15-year-olds' capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy and science literacy.
Experts from AIR will discuss aspects of health care research and policy at AcademyHealth’s Annual Research Meeting (ARM), being held June 25-27, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans, Louisiana. The meeting focuses on the latest research and policy in the field of health and the organization, financing and ...
Student achievement depends on an array of factors within and beyond the classroom environment. Even within classrooms, a complex interplay of factors affects achievement. These factors include not only the curriculum but also teaching practices. In this paper, we are interested in two associated pilot programs, consisting of professional development, ...
The First 1,000 Most Critical Days Program was designed to offer mothers and babies in Zambia a suite of interventions to improve their health and development. This report is the result of an evaluation of the efficacy of this program.