People

Richard Halverson is Assistant Professor of Educational Administration. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Learning Sciences, after ten years experience as a school teacher and principal. His research focuses on the ways in which people access, learn and teach sophisticated, situated practices like school leadership.

Halverson's research aims to bring the research methods and practices of the Learning Sciences to the world of educational leadership. His dissertation work showed how classical ideas of wisdom and practical knowledge can be used to understand the complex work of contemporary school leaders. He has continued this line of work to develop research methods and theoretical frameworks to access, document and communicate the expertise of school leaders. Halverson has recently applied his methods to untangling several complex areas of school leadership research such as leadership for social justice, teacher evaluation, urban school leadership and data-driven decision making.

After graduating from Yale College with a degree in English, Jeffrey Grigg taught for one year as the Colet Fellow at St. Paul's School in London, England. Upon returning to the United States, he taught English to grades 8-12 and coordinated Summerbridge New Haven, an after-school and summer academic enrichment program.

Jeff is a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he completed a Master's degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. In addition to his work on the DDIS project, Jeff is a UW-Madison Interdisciplinary Training Program in Education Sciences Fellow. His interests include the social organization of schools, school effects, and social stratification and mobility.

Greg Hanson is a graduate student in the University of Wisconsin - Madison's Educational Policy Studies department. He returned to the university and his own studies after three years of teaching American and African-American History in urban and alternative high schools. His general studies within the field of policy are directed towards understanding how education can help address the societal issues of inequity and injustice that he saw manifest in the lives of his former students.

His current work lies in trying to understand the nature of data as a communicative device within school organizations. He is particularly interested with how local actors use data to create individual meaning for their own teaching and learning. Greg's research is also concerned with how the process of "data creation" at the local level can lead to local school empowerment.

Yi-Hwa Liou is a graduate student in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she completed a Master’s degree.  She is particularly interested in school leadership development which enables successful instructional practice and student learning.  Her current work focuses on how trustworthy leadership influences the structure and function of professional interaction.  In particular, she is looking at the relationships between the levels of trustworthiness and the degree of knowledge sharing about instructional practice among professionals.

Reid Prichett is a graduate student in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work aims to capture and communicate successful school leadership practices which enable teachers to better help students learn. His current work looks at how school leaders implement programs in schools which provide formative feedback on teaching and student learning. In particular, he is studying how teachers and administrators make sense of and use Measures of Academic Progress (MAP).

Previously, Prichett was a high school mathematics teacher and university supervisor. He currently co-coordinates a summer mathematics college access program with the P.E.O.P.L.E. Program. Prichett has completed a MA in Curriculum and Instruction-Mathematics Education and Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Suzanne is a graduate student in the Educational Psychology department, Learning Sciences specialization. Prior to UW she managed two IT development and awards programs for faculty at the University of Texas at Austin¹s Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment. Prior to that, she worked as an instructional design lead and project manager for Human Code, an Austin gaming company, and Sapient. She holds a BS in English with a teaching certification and an MA In Curriculum and Instruction, Instructional Technology specialization, from UT Austin.

Her current research on the DDIS project includes the exploration of how customized formative evaluation data collection and visualization tools for handheld devices influence teacher practices and local school data systems to improve student learning.

Kia Sorensen graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Sociology and Interdisciplinary Visual Arts. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the department of Sociology where she also received her Master’s degree in Sociology. She has a general interest in social stratification, the sociology of the family, and the sociology of education.  

Her work on the DDIS project highlights some of the potential unintended consequences of public displays of achievement data as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. Kia's other current work focuses on the impact of changing family structure and neighborhoods on child educational outcomes.

After completing his degree in Elementary Education at Indiana University, Chris went on to become an elementary school teacher in California. He taught at the elementary and middle school levels for four and a half years. Along the way, he obtained a masters degree in Administration from Pepperdine University, which then led to an assistant principal position at a K-5 elementary school in Inglewood, CA. During his three years in Inglewood, he served as both an assistant principal and principal of Worthington Elementary School.

Currently, Chris is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin. He is enjoying the learning and challenges that the university setting offers, but he his focused on completing his degree so that he can return to working in the K-12 public school environment. His interests include improving urban education, special education, and family and community involvement.

Jeff Watson is an Assistant Researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Drawing from a background in Industrial and Systems support improvement and quality with policy, technical and organizational solutions. In his dissertation "Towards Designing Effective Feedback Systems for Public Schools", he examined the processes in which school develop and use sources of meaningful data. He is building on his doctoral research by extending a systems approach on two current projects, the System-wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE) project and the Longitudinal Data Systems (LDS) Project.

Watson's work is examining district and state level issues related to information systems design, decision support, data warehousing, teacher professional development, and program evaluation. He has recently participated in the National Center Education Statistics Cooperative Fellows program, guest lectured for a High School Redesign course and other student groups, and presented work at a national Math and Science Partnership Evaluation conference.

Moses Wolfenstein is a doctoral student in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He holds an MA in educational administration from Teachers College, Columbia University, where he did mixed-methods research and policy analysis on the New York Department of Education’s district level suspension system. While in New York he also studied conflict resolution at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, leading him to focus on the place schools hold within larger social systems and the various factors creating intractable conflicts at school and district levels.