Allison Milby, PhD

Associate Data Scientist

Allison Milby, MA, is an Associate Data Scientist at CRESP, working with the Delaware Department of Education. She brings over ten years of experience in education and seven years of experience in project management and mixed-methods research. She specializes in using qualitative and survey research to expand high-quality teacher training and support. She is experienced in program evaluation, instrument development, conducting interviews, leading large-scale survey administration, analysis, and reporting. Milby grew up in New Jersey and started her education career working in Philadelphia schools as a City Year Corps member. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and a master’s degree in education policy from the Teachers College at Columbia University.

Andrew Johnson, PhD

Associate Data Scientist

Andrew Johnson joined CRESP as an Associate Data Scientist in September 2023 and contracted out to the Delaware Department of Education through the Harvard Strategic Data Project Fellowship. In his prior role as a Data Analyst with AEM Corporation, Johnson gained experience working on Federal Department of Education longitudinal data collections, including the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) and EdFacts. Other relevant past professional experience includes stints as a contractor with the New York City Department of Education and as an Americorps Member with City Year New York. Andrew’s passion for educational equity developed from tutoring and mentoring elementary and high school students during his time in college, and he graduated with a History and International Studies double major from Johns Hopkins University in 2017. Following graduation, he worked as a paraeducator in a Middle School in New York City through City Year. Johnson completed his MA in Sociology and Education Policy from Teachers College Columbia University in 2020. His research interests include teacher leadership/mentorship programs, educator preparation, community school models, civics education and service learning, as well as high dosage tutoring programs. In his current role with the Delaware DOE, Andrew is focusing on Educator Evaluation and Mentoring/Induction and is supporting survey data collection surrounding the state’s transition to a new teacher evaluation system for SY2023-24.

 

 

 

Leigh McLean, PhD

Leigh McLean is an Assistant Research Professor Center for Research in Educational and Social Policy and is PI of the Teachers’ Emotions, Characteristics, and Health (TECH) Lab. Dr. McLean investigates how teachers’ emotions and emotion-related experiences including well-being impact their effectiveness. She is particularly interested in how teachers’ emotions impact their instructional practices, and the role that early-career teachers’ emotions play as they transition into the career. She holds expertise in quantitative, mixed-methods, and longitudinal study design and implementation, multileveled data analysis, and classroom observation.

She is currently leading two federally funded projects: one from the Institute of Education Science exploring how elementary teachers’ feelings and beliefs impact their effectiveness in the content areas they teach, and one from the National Science Foundation exploring how the mentored teaching experience impacts elementary mathematics teachers’ effectiveness during the early career stage.

 

 

 

Mary Culnane, PhD

Mary Culnane is a Policy Scientist at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP) at the University of Delaware. She holds a master’s degree in evaluation methods and a doctoral degree with a focus on health policy program evaluation from the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, University of Delaware. She also holds a post-graduate degree in adult primary care from the University of Pennsylvania and a program certificate in epidemiology/biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University. 

Since joining CRESP, Ms. Culnane uses her program evaluation expertise to support and lead evaluations for federal, state, and local government and non-government health and social programs. As an evaluation practitioner, Ms. Culnane works with stakeholders to help focus their evaluation needs and capitalizes on innovative designs and methods to meet those needs. Her primary research interest area includes systems research and understanding how theory can inform evaluation designs.

Before joining CRESP, Ms. Culnane served as a lead and associate investigator for public health prevention programs and clinical trials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bangkok, Thailand, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland. Activities included designing, implementing, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating results from domestic and international projects, primarily focused on HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

 

 

Carolyn Hammerschmidt

Carolyn Hammerschmidt, Ed.D is a Research Associate III, at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP) at the University of Delaware. Her degrees include a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership at the University of Delaware, a Certificate in Advanced Studies in Educational Administration from SUNY Brockport, a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design from University of Wisconsin-Stout, and a Master of Arts in Music Education from The Ohio State University

 

Carolyn’s professional background is in public education, which includes serving as an assistant principal and music teacher in upstate New York. Carolyn also brings an extensive past in volunteering in her local community, including leading advocacy efforts for her local public schools, serving as a founding board member for an education foundation, and serving as the president of her local elementary school PTA.

 

Samuel Van Horne, PhD

Sam Van Horne, Ph.D., is a data scientist in the Center for Research in Education & Social Policy at the University of Delaware. Prior to joining CRESP, Dr. Van Horne worked in healthcare, where he conducted research and program evaluation about initiatives designed to support clinician wellbeing. Before his work in healthcare, Dr. Van Horne worked in higher education and conducted research about the effectiveness of educational technologies and interventions that support college student outcomes.

 

 

M. Gail Headley, PhD

Marcia “Gail” Headley, Ph.D. is a Data Scientist at the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy (CRESP) at the University of Delaware. She earned a doctoral degree in Educational Studies at the University of Cincinnati where she specialized in the development of mixed methods research designs and strategies for integrating quantitative and qualitative research approaches. In 2017, the American Education Research Association (AERA) Mixed Methods SIG honored her with the prestigious Outstanding Dissertation Award. Her work has been published in the Journal of Mixed Method Research.

Dr. Headley uses her methodological expertise to support a variety of CRESP projects. She is involved with a study of food insecurity that employs methods recommended by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. She collaborates with continuing-track faculty members on an NSF-funded study of self-efficacy development among undergraduate engineering majors at UD. Dr. Headley also leads quantitative and statistical analyses of longitudinal administrative data from the Delaware DOE’s State Longitudinal Data System.

Years of volunteering, tutoring, and teaching in public schools—working with students of all ages— inspire her interest in research. Dr. Headley is devoted to designing effective research studies to generate well-justified answers to complex questions about how students learn given variations in their health, homes, classrooms, and schools. Ultimately, her goal as a researcher is to become a more able and influential advocate for others.

Katrina K. Morrison, EdD

Dr. Katrina K. Morrison, Ed.D. (University of Pennsylvania), is a Policy Scientist who provides leadership and support for several projects at CRESP. She serves as PI for the HRSA-funded Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) evaluation and DHSS-funded State of Our Union: Delaware Black Girls Project and is collaborating on state policy projects including DSAAPD Vaccine Access; IES College Readiness; and DDOE Stateline Opportunity to Learn. In 2018, Dr. Morrison was awarded a UD Partnership for Public Education Fellowship to conduct research on restorative practices in K-12 schools.

 

Prior to her role at CRESP, Dr. Morrison worked at RFA, where she led projects on out-of-school-time programming; arts integration in high school courses; and Delaware DPAS-II teacher and specialist evaluations. She has also served as a Data Analyst for The Civil Rights Project and Consultant for CPRE’s Discipline in School Contexts Project. She has been a Lecturer in UPenn’s MSW Program and a K-12 teacher supervisor, evaluator, and classroom teacher in the School District of Philadelphia.

 

For over 15 years, Dr. Morrison has used action research to benefit underserved communities across different systems such as education, health, and justice. In addition to her CRESP research projects, her foci include privileging the perspectives and lived experiences of students in shaping policy and practices around K-12 school climate. She also strives to bring equity and intersectional lenses to all of her projects.