CONTACT & STAFF INFO

Dr. Michael Nakkula, Director is the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Marie and Max Kargman Assistant Professor of Human Development and Urban Education Advancement. He also codirects the School's Risk and Prevention Program , and teaches and conducts research in the areas of adolescent development and urban education advancement.

Community-Based Programming & Research:

Molly Gosline, Ed.M. coordinates Project IF's community based programs. Her work focuses on coordinating and developing the evaluation processes for longitudinal research projects, including the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), Brandywyne Village Housing Development, and G-Row Boston.   Molly's previous work includes developing programs and program evaluation instruments for the Girl Scouts of America and for the Center for Community-Based Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.   Ms. Gosline holds a master's degree in Risk and Prevention from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

School-Based Programming & Research:

Claudia Pineda, Ed.M. Coordinator of School-Based Evaluation is collecting and analyzing data on school mentoring at the Charlestown High School and the Edwards Middle School focusing on the students' school attitudes, academic performance, connectedness to the world, and "Future Orientation." She completed her Master's in Education in Risk & Prevention focusing on work with adolescents.

Research & Evaluation:

Amy Dray and Claudia Pineda, both Doctoral students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, are the senior research assistants on an evaluation project of the NFTE entrepreneurship education curriculum. This project includes a longitudinal study of the NFTE curriculum's effects in schools in the Boston area and the construction of a developmental model of the psychology of entrepreneurship. Miranda Lutyens coordinates the evaluation project.

Project IF works with a team of researchers and practitioners affiliated with Harvard University, Brandywyne and Highpoint Villages, and the Boston Public Schools who have backgrounds in program design and evaluation, child development, sports and recreation management, and resident services. In addition to their work in the Greater Boston area, Project IF's research team is conducting evaluations of mentoring programs in New York City and Prescott, Arizona. Results from these studies help inform the larger mentoring field, and are used to shape Project IF's methodology and assessment.