Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) 

To ensure the overall quality of SIPS processes and deliverables, a team of technical advisory panelists will convene at key points throughout the project to articulate feedback, commendations, and recommendations for project and state partners. Project leadership matches panelists’ experience and expertise to the development of specific deliverables to yield informed, active, and formative feedback from panelists that can be used to improve project outputs. 

The SIPS TAP includes:

 

Aneesha Badrinarayan, M.S.

Aneesha Badrinarayan, M.S., is a senior advisor at the Learning Policy Institute. Her work focuses on supporting states, districts, and educators to develop and implement student-centered systems of assessment that support all learners. She has led several multi-state teams to redefine “alignment” in the era of new state standards; developed criteria for innovative assessments; provided professional learning state leaders; and conducted analyses of efforts to design and implement performance assessments and systems of assessment in science.

Chad Buckendahl, Ph.D.

Chad Buckendahl, Ph.D., is a Partner with ACS Ventures, LLC. His research interests include standard setting, test evaluation, and validity. Dr. Buckendahl has designed and led numerous validation studies. He currently serves on multiple TACs; editorial boards for peer-reviewed journals; and on volunteer committees for the Association of Test Publishers, Institute for Credentialing Excellence and National Council on Measurement in Education.

Kristen Huff, Ph.D.

Kristen Huff, Ph.D., currently serves as Vice President of Assessment and Research at Curriculum Associates, Inc. She is a member of the board of directors for the National Council of Measurement in Education and serves as associate editor for Applied Measurement in Education. Dr. Huff has two decades of experience in standards-aligned assessment design, evaluation, educational measurement, and psychometric research.

Suzanne Lane, Ph.D.

Suzanne Lane, Ph.D., is a Professor of Research Methodology in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. She researches educational measurement and testing, with a focus on design, technical, validity, and policy issues, including performance-based assessments. She has served as the President of NCME, the Vice President of Division D-AERA, and as a member of the Joint Committee for revising the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing.

Ric Luecht, Ph.D.

Ric Luecht, Ph.D., is a Professor of Educational Research Methodology at UNC- Greensboro. He researches technology integration in assessment, advanced psychometric modeling and estimation, and the application of engineering design principles for formative assessment. He has designed numerous programs for automated test assembly and a computerized adaptive multistage testing framework used by several large-scale testing programs.

Paul Nichols, Ph.D.

Paul Nichols, Ph.D., recently retired from being the Director of Assessment Design at NWEA where he was responsible for leading efforts in developing next generation assessments that integrate learning sciences with the design and implementation assessments for learning. He will now serve as Chief Science Officer at Planful Learning and Assessment LLC. He has nearly three decades of experience ensuring that assessment designs, theories of action, and score interpretations and intended uses are technically defensible and connected to customer needs.

David Pugalee, Ph.D.

David Pugalee, Ph.D., is a full professor and Director of the Center for STEM at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Pugalee served as part of the writing team for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Navigations series and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics Great Tasks. Dr. Pugalee has more than a decade of classroom teaching experience and has led multi-million-dollar projects related to STEM education.

Christina Schneider, Ph.D.

Christina Schneider, Ph.D., works to build coherent connections among classroom assessments, interim assessments, and large-scale assessments. Her research has been published in Applied Measurement in Education, Peabody Journal of Education, Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, Journal of Multidisciplinary Evaluation and Educational Assessment. She is the Sr. Director of Psychometrics & Learning Science at NWEA.

Jill Wertheim, Ph.D.

Jill Wertheim, Ph.D., directs science assessment programs at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity. In this position, Dr. Wertheim focuses on the development of systems of assessment for science that include performance assessments. She works with educators, district and regional offices, and state leaders to develop and use performance assessments to guide teaching and learning of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).