The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers includes a research team comprised of Research Affiliates and Research Assistants.

Research Affiliates
Dr. Jill Harrison Berg
Dr. Sarah Birkeland
Dr. Susan M. Kardos
Dr. David Kauffman
Dr. Edward Liu

Research Affiliates

Dr. Jill Harrison Berg, Research Affiliate. Jill Harrison Berg is a middle school teacher and consultant with experience in public, independent, and international school settings. She received her doctorate in Learning and Teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was a recipient of the Edward J. Meade Fellowship, Spencer Research Training Grant, the James Bryant Conant Fellowship, and the Roy E. Larsen Fellowship.  She holds a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Comparative Study of Religion from Harvard University, a master’s degree in Elementary Education from Lesley University, and National Board Certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in Early Adolescence/ English Language Arts.  Her interests involve improving educational practice and student learning through reflection. Berg's varied experience extends from facilitating workshops for experienced and pre-service teachers and administrators, to serving as a school improvement coach in the Boston Public Schools, to collaborating on research and policy-planning teams, in addition to teaching elementary and middle school students.  She has served as a consultant on special projects within the National Research Council, RAND, the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), Harvard's Office of School Partnerships, Harvard’s Project Zero, WGBH, UNICEF, TERC Investigations, and the Massachusetts Department of Education. Berg is the author of Improving the Quality of Teaching through National Board Certification: Theory and Practice (Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc., 2003) as well as other reports and articles related to teaching quality. Her e-mail address is:  jhberg@gmail.com.

Dr. Sarah Birkeland, Research Affiliate.  Sarah Birkeland received her doctorate in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was a recipient of the Spencer Research Training Grant. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MA in Education Psychology from the University of Colorado at Denver. She has taught high school English in Jakarta, Indonesia, and elementary and middle school in Denver, Colorado. Birkeland's research interests include teacher recruitment and induction, licensure programs and policy, and the use of research in educational decision making. She is co-author of Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in our Schools (Jossey-Bass, 2004), as well as numerous articles about new teachers' experiences in schools. Her latest article, "Good Reasons for Ignoring Good Evaluation," is forthcoming in Evaluation and Program Planning. Birkeland is an independent researcher and consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her email is sbirkeland@gmail.com.

Dr. Susan M. Kardos, Research Affiliate. Susan M. Kardos is the Director of the Initiative for Day School Excellence at the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.  Kardos was the Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Education at the Mandel Center at Brandeis University, and she received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Administration, Planning & Social Policy. A former elementary and middle school teacher, and certified as a middle and high school principal, Kardos studies education policy, new teacher induction and retention, professional culture and the organization of schools, school leadership, and mentoring. She received her AB degree from Brown University (1989) and her EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1992). Kardos has also consulted to the Boston Public Schools; supervised student teachers; taught and acted as a foundation representative in Ghana, West Africa; and directed a service learning project for teenagers on an Indian Reservation in Montana. She is co-author of Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools (Jossey-Bass, 2004) and has published articles about new teacher support and induction in Educational Administration Quarterly, Teachers College Record, The Phi Delta Kappan; and Educational Leadership. Her article, “'Not Bread Alone': Clandestine Schooling and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto During the Holocaust” appears in the Spring 2002 issue of the Harvard Educational Review. She is the recipient of a Spencer Foundation 2002 Dissertation Fellowship for Research Related to Education and a Research Training Grant. Kardos spends her free time traveling, writing odes to her beloved New York City, and missing her former students. Her email address is: susank@cjp.org. 

Research Assistants

Megin Charner-Laird, Research Assistant. Megin Charner-Laird is a 4th year doctoral student in Learning and Teaching. After graduating from Swarthmore College, she spent four years teaching elementary school in California’s Bay Area. Her research focuses on teacher learning and development, as well as on the experiences of newly trained urban teachers. Charner-Laird served as an editor of Education, Past and Present:  Reflections on Research, Policy, and Practice (2005), a volume celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Harvard Educational Review, in addition to serving as co-chair of the journal. Along with her work on the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, Charner-Laird is a founding member of the student-run Urban Impact Project at HGSE. Charner-Laird is a recipient of the Spencer Research Training Grant.

Morgaen L. Donaldson,Research Assistant. Morgaen L. Donaldson is an advanced doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Spencer Research Training Grant recipient.  She is a co-author of Finders and keepers:  Helping new teachers survive and thrive in our schools (2004); Reflections of first-year teachers on school culture:  Questions, hopes, and challenges (1999); and several articles and book chapters.  As a member of the Harvard Educational Review, she co-edited Education, Past and Present:  Reflections on Research, Policy, and Practice (2005).  A former high school teacher, Donaldson was a founding faculty member of the Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s public high school for the arts.  As a researcher, she studies teachers’ career development and professional growth, teachers unions, and current changes in rural and urban schools.  A proud Mainer, she is a graduate of Princeton University (AB, 1994) and Downeast Maine’s public schools.

Sarah Fiarman, Research Assistant. Sarah Fiarman is an advanced doctoral student in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  A National Board Certified Teacher, she taught in the Cambridge Public Schools for seven years.  Prior to that, Fiarman taught leadership and communication skills to students from high-poverty schools in Boston, New York City, and Trenton and Newark, NJ.  She currently teaches adults as a consultant for the Northeast Foundation for Children and as a supervisor of pre-service teachers in Boston.  Her research interests focus on teacher education and professional development.  She is a contributing author to several books about improving instruction including: Data Wise; Making Teaching Visible; and Cultivating Student Reflection.  She received a BA in Feminist Studies from Stanford University and is a recipient of the Presidential Fellowship at Harvard.

Anne Jones, Research Assistant. Anne Jones is an advanced doctoral student in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Her research interests include communities of practice, instructional capacity, second-stage teachers, retention, and data as a tool for instructional improvement.  Jones holds a BA in Psychology (1997) from Dartmouth College and an Ed. M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1998).  She has worked as a middle school science teacher, an advisor for student teachers, a consultant for Scientific American Frontiers, and an intern for the U.S. Department of Education in the Office of Special Education Programs.

Cheryl L. KirkpatrickResearch Assistant. Cheryl Kirkpatrick is an advanced doctoral student in Learning & Teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Spencer Research Training Grant recipient. She earned a BA from Dartmouth College, a MAT in social studies from Brown University, and an EdM in administration from Salem State University. Kirkpatrick taught middle school history for six years in Swampscott, MA, and earned National Board Certification in 2000. As an adjunct professor at Merrimack College, Kirkpatrick taught teacher education classes and continues to work with the Harvard Teacher Education Program. As a member and co-founder of the Urban Impact Project, Kirkpatrick co-authored several papers on the experienes of new, urban teachers. Her current research focuses on second-stage teachers, teacher development and teacher retention.

Will Marinell, Research Assistant. Will Marinell is a third-year doctoral student in Administration, Planning, & Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Will has taught literature and writing to elementary, middle, and high school students in New York City, the suburbs of Boston and Philadelphia, and in Kenya and Bangladesh. He has recently coauthored an article about an online poetry exchange between African and American students and coordinated a professional development conference in Tanzania for teachers from six countries. Will is currently a Co-Director of Bread Loaf in the Cities, an initiative to promote professional and curricular development between students and teachers in five U.S. cities. He graduated from Amherst College with a BA in English and from Harvard Graduate School of Education with an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, & Social Policy. His research interests include teacher-led professional development, school culture, and teacher retention.

Mindy Sick Munger, Research Assistant. Mindy Munger is a second-year doctoral student in Administration, Planning & Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a former middle school mathematics teacher in public and private schools. Munger has worked with Project Zero’s WIDE Project as a researcher and as a coach for online professional development courses for teachers. She served as Education Policy Adviser to the governor of Illinois, her home state. Munger holds an AB from Harvard (1994) and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (2001). Her research interests include teacher quality, retention, professional development, unions and National Board Certification. She is currently working on a project led by the Aspen Institute to examine teacher quality initiatives and policies in other countries.

John Papay, Research Assistant. John Papay is a second-year doctoral student in the Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before entering graduate school, he taught high school history in Pennsylvania and worked as a health care policy research analyst in Washington, D.C. He currently serves as a Freshman Proctor and member of the Board of Freshman Advisers for Harvard College. Papay holds a B.A. in History from Haverford College and an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research interests include teacher policy, the economics of education, teacher labor markets, and teachers unions.

Emily Kalejs Qazilbash, Research Assistant. Emily is currently an advanced doctoral student in the Administration, Planning and Social Policy program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught in the Baltimore Public Schools and at a Boston charter school, and most recently worked for the Boston Public Schools designing and implementing an induction plan for new teachers and running professional development programs. As a result of her work with Boston’s new teachers and her own experience as a teacher, Qazilbash’s research interests include recruiting, retaining, and sustaining high-quality new teachers in urban school districts and studying the experiences of early career teachers in teachers unions. She holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia in political theory and an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is certified as an elementary school principal. She is a two-time recipient of the James Bryant Conant Fellowship.

Jennifer Lynn Steele, Research Assistant. Jennifer Steele is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studies leadership and reform in urban schools.  Steele has co-authored a 2005 study on the professional development needs of assistant principals in Boston (www.bostonsli.org/research.html), and her writing has appeared in Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning, edited by Kathryn Parker Boudett, Elizabeth City, and Richard Murnane (Harvard Education Press, 2005), as well as Learning to Teach for Social Justice, edited by Linda Darling-Hammond, Jennifer French, and Siliva Paloma Garcia-Lopez (Teachers College Press, 2002).  Steele holds an MA in education from Stanford University, as well as an AM in English and an AB in English and psychology from Georgetown University.  In 2005-06, she serves as the Graduate Student Council Program Chair of the American Educational Research Association.  Before moving to Boston, she was a high-school English teacher and a team leader of Gifted and Talented Education in San Diego, CA.  She has also recruited and trained teachers for a national test-preparation company and taught elementary school and community college outside Washington, DC

Stacy Agee Szczesiul, Research Assistant. Stacy Agee Szczesiul is an advanced doctoral student in the Learning and Teaching program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Prior to becoming a graduate student, she taught in an alternative school in New York City, a comprehensive high school in west Texas, and an essential school in New Hampshire.  Szczesiul earned her undergraduate degree in Political Science and a Masters degree in Education at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC.  Her current research focuses on teacher autonomy in a context of accountability.  As a member of the Urban Impact Project she has collaborated with colleagues to study the experiences of first year teachers.  She has coauthored and presented several papers as a result of her work on this project.  Szczesiul maintains a connection with schools by serving as a member of the grant-funded NH Center for Effective Behavioral Interventions and Supports.  In 2004 she was awarded a Spencer Research Training Grant.