With an extraordinarily talented staff currently of 27 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 (President) founded Empirical Education in 2003 after a 25-year career in education. To help school districts succeed in their mission, he draws on his awareness of children's learning in the classroom, extensive experience in developing instructional technologies, lifelong commitment to scientific research, and entrepreneurial drive. Newman's PhD 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. He has published more than 35 books and articles and has served as program chair for the American Educational Research Association's Curriculum and Learning Division. He was a pioneer in the application of Internet technologies for student learning, professional development, and school administration, bringing to market the first integrated web server designed for schools. His business career has included senior positions at educational software companies Tegrity and Soliloquy Learning.
Andrew Jaciw (Chief Scientist) complements his deep understanding of statistical methods and experimental design with five years' practical experience as a third-grade teacher and ESL instructor. Jaciw holds a PhD in Education as well as an MS in Epidemiology from Stanford University; during his time there, 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 (Research Scientist) holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston and an MS in Applied Math from Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology. Lazarev 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) holds 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.
Gloria I. Miller (Director of Evaluation Design) is both an experienced classroom educator and an expert learning-products developer in the electronics industry. While academic director of Sonoma State's PreCollege Programs, she helped the 3-1-3 program—now called University Transition Academy and winner of California State School Board's 1998 Golden Bell Award—to become a model high school-university collaboration. Miller co-authored Digital Design: Foundations of Web Design, which aligns key national technology standards—including both the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Students and the National Workforce Center for Emerging Technologies—with the needs of K-12 education. She is completing a PhD at the Stanford University School of Education's Learning Sciences and Technology Development program, with a concentration on Curriculum and Teacher Education.
Sandy Philipose (Research Scientist) brings both a practitioner and researcher lens for looking at issues of empirical research in education. Sandy completed her BA in History and Spanish and Masters of Arts in Teaching at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. Prior to attending Stanford University and completing her PhD in Curriculum and Teacher Education, she worked as a high school Spanish teacher for the Plano Independent School district in Texas for five years. During her time at Stanford, Sandy worked on projects focusing on topics such as teacher preparation, teacher practices, and their connection to student achievement. Areas of research include teacher learning and development and the teaching of language.
Kylene Chinsio Shen (Product Manager) brings more than nine years of experience in the education industry to her role as Product Manager 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 has taught first and second grades and served as a math specialist in inner-city Boston. 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 production and marketing team in the development of company products, identification of new prospects and partnerships, and evaluation and improvement of company processes.
Robert L. Smith (Vice President of Engineering) 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 (Director of Research Operations) 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) served over 17 years as a school teacher and 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, Thomas conducted research in school reform, vouchers and charter schools, academic accountability, teacher preparation, and special education issues. As research associate with LTG Associates, she evaluated California grant-funded programs supporting efforts among law enforcement, mental health agencies, and community service providers to assist juvenile offenders and their families.
Professional staff. Currently 17 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
Research Managers
Sara Atienza
Charlie Rockman
Kristen Sullivan
Megan Toby
Joseph Townsend
Jenna Zacamy
Margit Zsolnay
Research Assistants
Ruthie Chang
Christine Liao
Engineering
Huan Cung
Daniel Ho
Garrett Lai
Design & Analysis
Akiko Lipton
Xiaoqiu Xu
Qingfeng Zhao
Production and Marketing
Robin Means