Diana Autin

Executive Director
Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN)

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Diana Autin is the Executive Director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), NJ’s Parent Training and Information Center. She also co-directs NE-PACT, the Region 1 Parent Technical Assistance Center, providing technical assistance and capacity-building to the federally-funded parent training and information centers and community parent resource centers in the Northeast United States.
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Vito J. Borrello

Executive Director
National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement

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Vito J. Borrello is the first Executive Director for the National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE), appointed in September 2014. Since its founding, NAFSCE has addressed systemic issues to advance family, school and community engagement as a strategy for child development, student achievement and school improvement. Initiatives include Reframing the Family Engagement Conversation and the establishment of the National Alliance for Family Engagement; the 18-state State Consortium on Family Engagement in partnership with the Council for Chief State School Officers; and its Family Engagement Consortium on Pre-service Educator Preparation.
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Vanessa Coleman

Co-Director, Center for Education Research & Innovation
SRI Education

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Vanessa Coleman, Ed.D., co-director of SRI’s Center for Education Research & Innovation, is a seasoned qualitative researcher, technical assistance designer and provider, and change management leader. Coleman’s work spans a range of education improvement topics. She employs an equity-informed approach and improvement science practices to guide her work. For example, she systematically applies inclusive and equity-focused frameworks to organizational structures, systems, processes, and projects. Her SRI projects include a study to validate a new version of a widely used teacher-child interaction assessment on several dimensions, including inclusive and equitable opportunities for high-quality interactions. She is also leading an equity review of government agency databases.
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Sabrina E. Dent

President
Center for Faith, Justice, and Reconciliation

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Sabrina E. Dent, D.Min., is a life-long advocate for human rights and social justice. As an interfaith leader, Dr. Dent developed a strong passion for religious freedom as a 2015 BJC Fellow with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Her public scholarship addresses the complexities of religious freedom, religion and public policy, and race, religion, and American public life.
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Greg J. Duncan

Distinguished Professor
School of Education, University of California, Irvine

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Greg J. Duncan is a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of California, Irvine. An economist, Duncan’s research focuses on neighborhood effects on the development of children and adolescents and other issues involving welfare reform, income distribution, and its consequences for children and adults.
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Kathryn Edin

William Church Osborn Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs
The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Co-Director
The Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing (CRCW)

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Kathryn Edin, Ph.D is one of the nation’s leading poverty researchers. A qualitative and mixed-method researcher, she has taken on key mysteries about the urban poor that have not been fully answered by quantitative work: How do single mothers possibly survive on welfare? Why don’t more go to work? Why do they end up as single mothers in the first place? Where are the fathers and why do they disengage from their children’s lives? How have the lives of the single mothers changed as a result of welfare reform? The hallmark of her research is her direct, in-depth observations of the lives of low-income women, men, and children.
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Alicia Espinoza

Senior Technical Assistance Consultant
AIR

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Alicia Espinoza is a senior technical assistance consultant at AIR. Her expertise includes coaching teacher leaders, school administrators, and district leaders through the implementation of evidence-based district and school improvement systems, processes, and practices. She specializes in school-wide design and implementation of professional learning communities, literacy in secondary and adult education, quality instruction for English Language Learners, and college and career readiness readiness and success for all students. In 2002, Espinoza was awarded the Multicultural Urban Professional Educator Award by DePaul’s School of Education for her successful work with at-risk, high poverty youth and adults. Her work extends beyond the local level, as she provides technical assistance to State Education Agencies in the development and execution of their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans, through AIR's federally funded State Support Network.
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Arnold F. Fege

President
Public Advocacy for Kids

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Arnold F. Fege is President of Public Advocacy for Kids, a national group devoted to federal and national education and child advocacy policy with a focus on low-income and special needs children and families. His personal and professional passion is to fight for the rights of parents and families who have no voice in the education of their children, in the United States and internationally, and bridging the practical needs of the local level with common sense national policy.
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Margo Gottlieb

Director
Assessment and Evaluation, Illinois Resource Center, and Lead Developer, World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium

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Margo Gottlieb, Ph.D., is Co-founder and Lead Developer for WIDA at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin- Madison, having also served as Director, Assessment and Evaluation, for the Illinois Resource Center. She has contributed to the crafting of language proficiency/ development standards for American Samoa, Guam, TESOL, and WIDA and has designed assessments, curricular frameworks, and instructional assessment systems for language learners. Her professional experiences span from being an inner city language teacher to working with thousands of educators across states, school districts, publishing companies, governments, universities, and educational organizations.
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David B. Grusky

Director
Center on Poverty and Inequality

Professor of Sociology
Stanford University

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David B. Grusky, Ph.D is Edward Ames Edmonds Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Sociology, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Director of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, and coeditor of Pathways Magazine. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, corecipient of the 2004 Max Weber Award, founder of the Cornell University Center for the Study of Inequality, and a former Presidential Young Investigator.
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Pamela Higgins-Harris

Senior Consultant
MAEC

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In her current role as Senior Consultant, Pamela's work focuses on listening, collaborating, modeling, facilitating, and advising on tiered approaches for advancing culturally responsive and sustaining systemic leadership through the lens of educational equity. To date, Pamela has over 50 years of experience in public education and higher education, serving in roles that have embedded her commitment as an education equity leader. Her work has always focused on balancing, while elevating, the academic, social-emotional, and socio-cultural needs and interests of diverse, underrepresented, underserved, and marginalized learners ranging from Pre-K to adult, as well as the stakeholders who serve them. Pamela's decades of service include a wide range of teaching and leadership roles held in special education; professional development for school improvement; mediation/conflict analysis, restorative practice and resolution; high school university collaborative initiatives; facilitation of district-wide change and transformation; oversight of district-wide equity assurance compliance and programs; and graduate-level instruction on topics related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. As a dedicated lifelong learner, educator, and leader, Pamela holds a B.A. in French and an M.Ed. in Special Education from American University; and an Advanced Graduate Specialist Certification (A.G.S.) in Professional Development & Urban Education from University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, she is culminating her journey in academia via doctoral studies in the American University School of Education Department of Policy and Educational Leadership (SOE EPL) with a concentration in Social Justice. The quality of Pam's life is enhanced by her steadfastly devoted family, the kinship and longevity of loyal friends, her cherished extended family, and the loving memory of her mother and father. The most enriching, fulfilling realm of Pam's life rests in her marriage to the love of her life, Ty, with whom she will celebrate 49 years of marriage on June 15, 2023.
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Dia Jackson

Senior Researcher
AIR

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Dia Jackson is a senior researcher at AIR who provides technical assistance, research, and professional development projects to states and school districts in the areas of response to intervention (RTI)/multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) and special education best practices. Currently, Dr. Jackson is the project director for the Arkansas RTI State Professional Development Grant and is director of professional development and coaching for the Delaware Early Literacy in MTSS Project. Dr. Jackson also serves as project director for the Vermont High Leverage Practices project which builds capacity of general educators in inclusive settings through training and coaching.
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Liz Lewis

Associate Professor of Educational Studies
Dickinson College

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Liz's research is grounded in sociocultural approaches to examining the literacy development, instruction, and practices of adolescents, particularly as these relate to migrant and English learning youth. Currently, her teaching interests include the implementation of culturally responsive pedagogy, social justice pedagogy, inclusive writing pedagogy, and meeting the diverse needs of students across educational contexts.
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Susan Mundry

Division Director
WestEd

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As a Division Director, Susan Mundry provides strategic leadership for a $72M portfolio of research and technical assistance projects. She is an expert in professional learning, systems change, educational equity, and leadership development. She directs a team leading research and coaching for the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands and a team of technical assistance providers for the Center for Educational Equity. She is also developing a simulation game focused on Learning Forwards’ new Standards for Professional Learning.
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Michelle Nutter

Senior Education Equity Consultant

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Michelle is a Senior Educational Equity Consultant for the Center for Education Equity at MAEC, a Pennsylvania-certified teacher, and former Civil Rights Investigator for the PA Office of Attorney General. With over 30 years of experience in education and civil rights law, she provides training and technical assistance to schools and communities on a wide array of issues that disrupt the educational process.
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Robert Salley

Deputy Director
WestEd

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Guillermo Solano-Flores

Professor of Education
Graduate School of Education, Stanford University

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Dr. Guillermo Solano-Flores is Professor of Education at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. He specializes in educational assessment and the linguistic and cultural issues that are relevant to both international test comparisons and the testing of cultural and linguistic minorities. His research is based on the use of multidisciplinary approaches that use psychometrics, sociolinguistics, semiotics, and cognitive science in combination. He has conducted research on the development, translation, localization, and review of science and mathematics tests.
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Lisa Tabaku

Director, Dual Language and Multilingual Education
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)

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Lisa Tabaku returned to CAL in 2018 to serve as Director of Global Language and Culture. Lisa was the director and assistant director of PK–12 ELL Professional Development at CAL from 2008 until 2013.
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Susan Villani

Senior Program Associate
WestEd

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Susan Villani has been coaching and teaching administrators to become more effective leaders and instructors for over 30 years. Villani specializes in consulting and professional development in teacher evaluation, coaching educators to improve instruction, mentoring and induction of new teachers and principals, building collaborative school communities, and formative assessment.
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Sandy Walker

Supervisor, Equity and School Improvement
Calvert County Public Schools, Maryland

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