With an extraordinarily talented staff currently of 28 members, our company has the capacity to conduct high quality research efficiently. Beyond our expertise in research and evaluation methods, staff members bring experience in teaching, classroom practice, school administration, staff development, product development, marketing, and commercial publishing.
Executive Team
Denis Newman
Chairman and CEO
650.328.1734 X:112
As the founder of Empirical Education Inc., Newman has pursued a mission of helping educators make evidence-based decisions. Over the last eight years, Empirical has worked with school systems to conduct over 20 randomized experiments and numerous other evaluations of instructional and professional development programs. Newman has 35 years of experience studying student-teacher learning processes and developing instructional technologies. His Ph.D. is in Developmental Psychology from the City University of New York. He has conducted research and development at Rockefeller University, UC San Diego, Bank Street College of Education, and BBN Corporation. As a pioneer in the application of Internet technologies for student learning, professional development, and school administration, he is widely published and has served as program chair for the American Educational Research Association’s Curriculum and Learning Division. His business career has included senior positions at educational software companies Tegrity and Soliloquy Learning.
Matthew Borek
Research Scientist
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Borek came to Empirical Education after years as a teacher and a State-level policy analyst. After receiving an MA in Education Research Measurement, and Evaluation from Boston College, he taught music at the secondary level for five years, in Massachusetts and overseas in Morocco. While overseas, he was a member of the US State Department-sponsored “AERO+” project, which established standards and benchmarks for music education to be used throughout the international schools. After working overseas, he worked for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, where he worked on their successful applications for Race to the Top and the Teacher Incentive Fund, as well as serving as a content expert in educator evaluation and performance based compensation systems. At Empirical, his work focuses on projects for the Regional Education Laboratories. He is currently obtaining his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College.
Michelle Brown
Research Scientist
650.328.1734 X:147
Brown is a researcher who came to Empirical Education after spending years as a classroom teacher and teacher educator. She taught English, Spanish, and remedial reading in public and charter high schools in New Orleans. As a classroom researcher she worked with Dr. Pamela Grossman on the development and use of PLATO, a classroom observation protocol specifically designed for research in Language Arts classrooms. As part of Dr. Grossman’s team, she has also gained experience facilitating trainings and designing online professional development tools. She has also instructed classroom methods courses in the Stanford Teacher Education Program. At Empirical Education, she has employed her expertise in classroom observation research by participating in the design of the Validation Engine and by providing technical assistance to school systems, including facilitating report interpretation sessions with the district. Michelle is also coordinating the collection and coding of classroom observations for a large randomized control trial. She is currently obtaining her PhD in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford University.
Andrew Jaciw
Chief Scientist
650.328.1734 X:117
Jaciw complements his deep understanding of statistical methods and experimental design with five years' practical experience as a third-grade teacher and ESL instructor. While obtaining a PhD in Education as well as an MS in Epidemiology from Stanford University, he focused on hierarchical modeling of longitudinal data of adolescent outcomes and using econometric methods to measure selection bias in studies of educational interventions. Before joining Empirical Education, Jaciw completed a BS in statistics and MA in math education at the University of Toronto and worked as a statistical analyst at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Ontario's Education Quality and Accountability Office. Jaciw is involved in design and analysis for all our company's research.
Valeriy Lazarev
Senior Research Scientist
650.328.1734 X:157
Lazarev holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston and an MS in Applied Math from Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology. He has held numerous research and teaching positions at Stanford University, Yale University, the University of Houston, and Moscow University, and has participated in a number of collaborative social science research projects. He is a recipient of the prestigious John M. Montias prize in Comparative Economic Studies and has most recently held the Campbell National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution. He brings to the company his extensive experience in both econometric data analysis and analytical software development and continues to work on both directions, providing scientific coordination of observational studies and contributing to the development of the company’s data analysis system MeasureResults.
Boya Ma
Manager of Design and Analysis
650.328.1734 X:136
Holding a Masters in Statistics from California State University, Ma has over 6 years of experience as a statistician using sophisticated experimental methodologies and programming environments such as SAS, R, HLM and Matlab to conduct effectiveness evaluations of educational products. At Empirical Education, Ma oversees the design and analysis team and works with data warehouse engineers and research managers to assist in the writing of reports and interpretations of study results and support in the ongoing quantitative theoretical and empirical research to develop, implement, and automate cutting age method in analyzing multilevel data. Currently, much of her work focuses on analyzing results from multi-site group randomized control trials as well as quasi-experiential multilevel data sets with continuous and categorical outcome variables.
Marilyn Quinsaat
Vice President of Sales
650.464.0303
Quinsaat has 25 years of experience in education and executive management for such industry leaders as Bank Street College, Education Development Center, MediaShare, Computer Curriculum Corporation, and Encyclopaedia Britannica. As a classroom teacher, Quinsaat pioneered the use of microcomputers in schools and conducted seminal research in the field in the late 70s and 80s. She has directed and supervised hundreds of product managers, graphic artists, and web developers in creating curriculum products for organizations as diverse as IBM, Sunburst, Addison–Wesley, Girls Inc., Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and the Society of Automotive Engineers. Most recently she was the Senior Vice President at CompassLearning, a subsidiary of WRCMedia.
Kylene Chinsio Shen
Director of Product
650.328.1734 X:137
Shen brings more than 10 years of experience in the education industry to her role as Director of Product for Empirical Education. Since receiving her MSEd from Northwestern University, she has worked as a curriculum developer on an NSF-funded environmental science initiative for high school students, and as a 1st and 2nd grade teacher and math specialist for an inner-city Boston charter school. As an instructional designer and product manager at Kaplan K12's student technology division, Shen managed the development, implementation, and support of seven online education products. At Empirical Education, she oversees the Products division in the development and implementation or company products, identification of new prospects and partnerships, and evaluation and improvement of company processes.
Robert L. Smith
CTO and Vice President of Engineering
650.328.1734 X:118
Smith holds a PhD in mathematical logic from Stanford University. He was senior vice president of Computer Curriculum Corporation, where he led the company's product development through its principal years of growth, creating the underlying algorithms for instructional optimization as well as the tools for efficient content formulation and for maintenance and design of the management system. At Stanford, Smith was the manager for a large National Science Foundation project involving computers and artificial intelligence in education. He taught computer science at Rutgers University and spearheaded that university's deployment of new computer systems for education and research.
Laurel Sterling
Vice President of Research
650.328.1734 X:127
Sterling applies her extensive experience in urban education, public school administration, research, and public policy to support schools in conducting evidence-based research. She has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley. As a Program Manager/Evaluator in Oakland Unified School District’s Department of Research and Evaluation, Sterling conducted summative and formative evaluations, best practices studies, needs assessments, and policy analyses.
Kathryn Thomas
Research Scientist
650.328.1734 X:124
Thomas served 17 years as a school teacher and district administrator. While earning a PhD in Education Administration from the University of North Texas, she taught science, mathematics, and social studies courses for teacher candidates. With the Texas Center for Educational Research and with Academic Information Management, Inc., Thomas conducted original research in school reform, vouchers and charter schools, academic accountability, teacher preparation, and special education issues. She also provided professional development for school board members on a variety of topics including the use of research in local policy decisions. Since joining Empirical, Kathryn has collaborated with local and state-level educators to conceive and design studies of their districts’ and agencies’ educational processes and outcomes. In addition, she has reviewed research for the What Works Clearinghouse and has synthesized studies for the REL-NEI Reference Desk.
Professional staff. Currently 19 additional staff members constitute the professional workforce to conduct our research and report results. These include several research managers and a survey analyst who have a wide range of practical school experience and expertise in disciplines such as psychology, sociology, education policy, instruction, and professional development. Our statistical analysis team has been trained in the advanced techniques required for the complex research designs called for in rigorous studies in schools. Our engineering team has extensive experience in database development and school data systems. Additional staff members provide support in contract management, accounting, HR, and general business administration.
Business Operations
Tessie Tumacder, Director of Operations, X:114
Research Managers
Ruthie Chang, Research Manager
Alyssa Chavez, Product Manager, X:146
Whitney Hegseth, Research Manager, X:142
Kristen Sullivan, Research Manager,
Megan Toby, Senior Research Manager, X:132
Joseph Townsend, Research Analyst, X:123
Jenna Zacamy, Senior Research Manager, X:126
Margit Zsolnay, Senior Research Manager
Research Assistants
Sophia Gray, Research Assistant, X:121
Casey Peterson, Research Assistant, X:144
Engineering
Huan Cung, Applications Engineer, X:154
Garrett Lai, Data Warehouse Engineer, X:113
Sean Traber, Applications Engineer, X:133
Design & Analysis
Li Lin, Statistician, X:131
Andrew Smith, Statistical Assistant, X:155
Marketing & Sales
Robin Means, Proposal Coordinator, X:134
Katharina Ruland, Marketing Associate, X:152