The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s mission is to catalyze transformational change in education, so that every student has the opportunity to lead a healthy, dignified, and fulfilling life. Over the last century, the Foundation’s work has had a profound and positive impact, including creating the Carnegie Unit (the credit hour), TIAA-CREF, Pell Grants, ETS, the Flexner Report (shaping U.S. medical education), the Carnegie Classifications, and Improvement Science. Today, the Foundation is focused on two intersecting fronts with strong connection to our legacy: transforming the American high school and evolving postsecondary education into a more effective engine for social and economic mobility.

The Foundation’s Impact Lab leverages analytics and builds evidence about the most promising learning tools, models, and partnerships for K-12 and postsecondary educational transformation. These include efforts to: (1) Explore new measures and tools for assessing, documenting, and credentialing learning; (2) Discover and incubate practical models for scaling the departure from the conflation of time and learning established by the Carnegie Unit; and (3) Identify successful programs and practices for educational institutions to advance long-term social and economic mobility.

Position Purpose
To support these efforts, the Foundation is seeking a Director, Research Engagement (“the Director.”) Reporting to the Managing Director of the Impact Lab, the Director plays a critical role in advancing the Foundation’s mission by supporting the generation and use of research that drives educational transformation.

The Director must have a strong analytic background paired with a commitment to the utility of using evidence to drive meaningful transformation in education, as well as deep experience in developing and exchanging knowledge through publications, presentations, and direct engagement with diverse audiences (e.g., scholars, practitioners, policymakers, community and industry leaders). This includes nurturing the co-development of research plans and facilitating discussions of research findings and implications, within and across sectors, including different roles and forms of expertise.

The Director has multiple areas of focus in their work at the Foundation. One is supporting collective engagement with and ongoing maintenance of a national research and development agenda to advance educational transformation, through a combination of partnering with multiple audiences about its use, reviewing existing literature, and updating it with additional evidence and emerging questions. A closely related responsibility is facilitating the joint generation and use of evidence across a range of populations and contexts through a network of research-practice partnerships, aligned to the research and development agenda. Another key focus is characterizing staff and student experiences and outcomes across diverse sites of learning as they implement innovative tools and practices, with particular attention to systems-level conditions and processes. Additional responsibilities include ongoing engagement with the Educational Transformation team to capitalize on learning opportunities in the portfolio as well as the supervision and support of the Lab Associate.

Essential Responsibilities

The specific work activities of the Director will vary depending upon the needs of each project. By way of example, they may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Designs, conducts, interprets, and supports the use of qualitative and mixed-methods analyses. Develops mixed-methods study designs appropriate to the research question and context (e.g., concurrent, sequential, triangulation, embedded, explanatory, exploratory). Collects qualitative data through surveys, structured and semi-structured interviews, focus groups, observations, assessments, artifacts, and documentation of decision-making processes. Codes, scores, visualizes, analyzes, and integrates qualitative and quantitative data (e.g., content analysis, thematic analysis, natural language processing, factor analysis, regression).
• Develops research designs to evaluate the implementation, impact, and sustainability of innovative programs and tools, such as skills-based assessments, instructional resources, early postsecondary access, and work-based learning programs. Evaluation approaches should be aligned to purpose and context (e.g., process evaluations, cost analyses, participatory evaluations, hybrid effectiveness/ implementation studies). A particular focus here will be on evaluating equity of opportunity and outcomes, including traditional measures of academic attainment as well as belonging and engagement, transferable/ durable skills, and long-term economic mobility.
  • Examples of potential studies include: effectiveness evaluations that capture changes in competencies and attitudes as outcomes; implementation studies that assess individual and organizational conditions and processes; hybrid designs that identify implementation barriers and evaluate intervention and implementation outcomes, including sustainability; and participatory evaluations anchored in community priorities that examine partnership dynamics and long-term impact.

• Builds and integrates evidence from multiple sources (e.g., external research, local evaluation and improvement projects, organizational process and outcome data, interest holder perspectives) to inform system improvement and transformation, as well as new research needs. 
  • Synthesizes and summarizes relevant research literature through rapid reviews;
  • Utilizes a range of participatory methods (e.g., user-centered design, community-based participatory research, design-based implementation research), as appropriate to the context, to include local students, families, educators, staff, and other community members in gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to inform decision-making;
  • Guides teams in collaborative articulation of priorities and rationale for investigations (needs analysis, theory of action, priority-setting, targets), valid interpretation of evidence, and joint decision-making integrating shared values, theory, and evidence;
  • Reviews, critiques, and recommends revisions for research and evaluation proposals based on both relevance and rigor;
  • Recognizes synergies across projects that motivate new partnerships and innovative approaches to advance transformative change; and
  • Applies systems thinking by analyzing relationships, root causes, and potential consequences to identify emerging research needs and intervention opportunities.

• Leads and facilitates complex partnerships with academic, policy, practitioner, and community audiences to formulate productive research questions and plans, critically evaluate evidence, and explore implications for action.
  • Builds relational trust and nurtures partnerships that honor the strengths of different forms of professional expertise and lived experience, eliciting diverse perspectives and equitable participation.
  • Exemplifies a service orientation; models humility with data.
  • Employs outstanding active listening skills to sensitively explore and understand diverse concerns.
  • Facilitates constructive dialogue to balance power dynamics among education practitioners and leaders, researchers, and community partners.
  • Convenes leaders across different roles and backgrounds to build alliances around shared interests and priorities.

• Presents results clearly in oral and written form, including a variety of knowledge products. Represents the Foundation at professional conferences and with leading academics and practitioners in the field. Produces timely reports to guide practical application, as well as high-quality research reports for peer-reviewed academic journals and makes significant contributions to the education field’s knowledge base.

• Leads, mentors, and supports direct reports by providing coaching, and clear performance expectations to foster growth and accountability

• Manages team workload and collaboration by delegating tasks effectively, balancing priorities, and fostering an inclusive, high-performing work environment.

Non-Essential Responsibilities

• Participates in meetings, strategic plans, and goals of the team.
• Attends, contributes to, and/or facilitates virtual & in-person meetings with external partners.
• Contributes to ongoing learning within and beyond the Foundation about how multiple forms of evidence may support transformation of education systems.

Required Education & Experience

• Ph.D. in education or closely related social science field (e.g., sociology, anthropology, psychology, learning sciences, economics, public policy, etc.) with focus in education.
• Evidence of and demonstrated accomplishment in working with educators to identify and use measures and related analytics to reflect on performance.
• Demonstrated success functioning as a knowledge broker across diverse roles, perspectives, and forms of expertise, including education practitioners, leaders, and policymakers; students, families, and other community members; and researchers.
• Evidence of and accomplishment in education-related research, preferably in both academic and applied settings.
• Strategic leadership and management experience, such as managing research-practice partnerships or research networks, preferably in a K-12 or postsecondary educational setting.
• Professional experience in formal (PK-12 and/or postsecondary school systems) or informal learning settings.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Proficiency in traditional educational research methods paired with flexibility in adapting those methodologies to better serve the improvement of practice.
• Thorough knowledge of educational systems (including organization, structure, governance, and social contexts) and key challenges they face.
• Strong mixed-methods research skills to design, conduct, interpret, and evaluate studies using both exploratory and explanatory methods to generate hypotheses, elucidate causal mechanisms, and develop and test theories.
• Demonstrated ability to select and apply a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques appropriate to the research question and context (e.g., data description, thematic analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics), including experience using analytic packages such as NVivo, R, Stata, etc.
• Experience conducting formative and summative evaluations for external interest holders.
• Perspective-taking skill to understand the types of measures, analyses, evidence, visualizations, reports, etc. that are useful in practical settings for students, staff, communities, and institutions.
• Thorough knowledge of education research, education policy, or the learning sciences in an area of specialization such as teachers’ professional development, school organization, curricular and pedagogical innovation, etc., especially from an equity lens.
• Ability to work with multiple constituencies including post-secondary education administrators, institutional researchers, K-12 practitioners and administrators, program leads, policymakers, and the public.
• Highly collaborative and flexible with ability to work in a fast-paced environment while being proactive in decision making and time management.
• Strong problem-solving skills and organizational abilities, including attention to detail as well as ability to manage multiple work streams simultaneously.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Consistent habits for actively seeking and effectively incorporating constructive feedback to improve collaborative work and outcomes.
• Ability to provide constructive feedback and support employee learning and growth.
• Strong leadership skills to align team efforts with organizational goals.

Compensation & Benefits

• The salary for this position is $175,056 annually
• Benefits include full medical, dental, vision, life and long-term care insurance, as well as employer subsidized flexible spending plans
• A retirement savings plan, including employer contributions of up to 12% of base pay after one year of service
• Generous time-off benefits and 8 weeks of paid parental leave
• Matching Gift program to benefit charitable organizations
• Educational Assistance to further your professional development