Faculty and Staff

Mary Kay Stein

Mary Kay Stein is the Founding Director of the Learning Policy Center. She holds a joint appointment at the University of Pittsburgh as Professor of Learning Policy and Senior Scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. Her research in the late 80s focused on classroom-based teaching and learning with the aim of understanding the nature of effective instructional practices in mathematics. In the early 1990s Dr. Stein’s research interests expanded to include the school and district contexts of teacher learning and professional development. Most notably, she studied the connections between district policy and classroom practice in New York City’s Community School District #2 under Anthony Alvarado, as well as the district-wide instructional reforms in the San Diego City Schools initiated under Alan Bersin and Anthony Alvarado, resulting in a number of widely read articles (e.g., "Inquiry at the crossroads of policy and learning: A study of a district-wide literacy initiative" in Teachers College Record, 104) and a book (Reform as Learning: School Reform, Organizational Culture, and Community Politics in San Diego.) Currently, she is investigating how the teacher learning demands of different curricula (Everyday Mathematics vs. Investigations) can influence teacher learning in large-scale reforms in two urban districts. A hallmark of Dr. Stein’s work is her ability to keep both the details of instructional practice and attention to policy in the same frame of analysis (see, for example, Architectures for Learning: A Comparative Analysis of Two Urban Districts).

Over the past several years, Dr. Stein has been a principal or co-principal investigator of a number of grants from both public (the National Science Foundation) and private (Spencer, MacArthur) foundations. Dr. Stein has served on several national panels including the National Academy of Education’s Panel on Strengthening the Capacity of Research to Impact Policy and Practice, the National Institute for Science Education’s Professional Development Project, and NCTM’s Standards Impact Research Group.

Lindsay Clare Matsumura

Lindsay Clare Matsumura is an Assistant Professor in the Learning Policy Center. She was a Senior Researcher at the National Center for Research on Education, Standards and Student Testing at UCLA before joining the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh in January 2004. She received in Ph.D. in Psychological Studies in Education from UCLA with a concentration in Psychocultural Studies. Her research focuses on at-risk students, the implementation of urban school reform policies, professional learning, the relation of task quality and student learning, and developing measures of instructional quality. Dr. Matsumura is the Principal Investigator on an IES funded study, "Content-Focused Coaching for High Quality Reading Instruction."

Jennifer Lin Russell

Jennifer Lin Russell is an Assistant Professor in the Learning Policy Center with a joint appointment at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC).She received her Ph.D. in 2007 from the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley with a concentration in education policy and organizations. Her research uses the conceptual tools of organizational sociology to examine the relationship between policy shifts and the organization of public schooling. Dr. Russell’s dissertation research explores the extent to which kindergartens have shifted from a developmental model emphasizing social skills and play to a year of formal academic instruction. It employs concepts from organizational theories and findings from a mixed methods study in order to illuminate how shifting conceptions of appropriate kindergarten education and state and local policies influence kindergarten teachers’ instructional practices. Her dissertation research was supported by a Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. While a doctoral student she also participated in several studies of accountability policies including a longitudinal study of the implementation of No Child Left Behind in three states conducted by the RAND corporation.

Richard Correnti

Richard Correnti joined the Learning Policy Center in the School of Education as an Assistant Professor in fall 2007. Correnti received his doctorate from the University of Michigan in Educational Administration and Policy in 2005 and has continued to work as a senior research associate on the Study of Instructional Improvement. His research interests center around the core function of schooling - instruction and student learning. He has examined causal models to understand how Comprehensive School Reform programs and professional development influence instructional opportunities. He is interested in studying the distribution and accumulation of instructional opportunities especially as it pertains to issues of equity in education. He studies how policy and educational reform initiatives can improve instruction and student learning, and how these efforts are influenced by issues of implementation and scaling-up.

Julia Kaufman

Julia Kaufman is the Executive Director of the Learning Policy Center with a joint appointment as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Learning Research and Development Center. She received her PhD in International Education from New York University in 2006 and also holds a Masters in Teaching degree from the University of Pittsburgh. As Executive Director, Dr. Kaufman is primarily interested in how academic research can impact policy and practice across education settings. She has worked as a consultant for a number of evaluation projects in education, including recent work with RAND to assess the implementation of a regional choice initiative in Beaver County, an investigation of mathematics curriculum implementation in Pittsburgh Public Schools, and evaluation of informal learning in museums. Her present postdoctoral work focuses on the implementation of mathematics curriculum reforms and how such reforms impact teachers’ instruction over time, as well as the extent to which teachers’ survey responses accurately capture the quality of their mathematics instruction. Dr. Kaufman has also taught English, writing, and pedagogy in a variety of settings, including secondary public schools and universities in the United States and the People’s Republic of China.