Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment

Cherie M. Avent is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. She also served as the Interim Assistant Director for Strategic Initiatives of CREA (March-August 2023). Her research focuses on issues related to social justice, communication, and STEM education evaluation. Cherie received her PhD in Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she taught at the Guilford Technical Community College in North Carolina. She has evaluated multiple education projects/programs funded by organizations such as the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, and the College Foundation of North Carolina.

Tamara Bertrand Jones, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professor in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership in the College of Education. She previously served as an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Associate Director for the Center for Postsecondary Success at Florida State University (FSU). She uses qualitative methods and critical and feminist theories to examine the sociocultural contexts that influence education and professional experiences of underrepresented populations, particularly Black women, in academia. Dr. Bertand Jones previous work as a higher education administrator and program evaluator also contribute to her research interests in culturally responsive assessment and evaluation. Her work has broad implications for recruitment, retention, advancement, and professional development of faculty and doctoral students. She is a founder and past president of Sisters of the Academy Institute, an international organization that promotes collaborative scholarship and networking among Black women in academia. In the spirit of collaborative scholarship, she and fellow scholars, wrote Pathways to Higher Education for African American Women (Stylus Publishing) and Cultivating Leader Identity and Capacity in Students from Diverse Backgrounds (Jossey-Bass) and the forthcoming Black Sisterhoods: Black Womyn’s Representations of Sisterhood across the Diaspora (Demeter Press). She also co-developed the Research BootCamp, a professional development program for emerging scholars to assist with transition to academia for early career faculty, and dissertation completion for advanced doctoral students. Dr. Bertrand Jones attended the University of Texas at Austin for her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, FSU for a Master’s degree in Higher Education Master’s, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Research and Evaluation Methods also from FSU.

Rebecca Hinze-Pifer is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership. She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago, a Master's of Public Policy from George Washington University, and a B.S. in astrophysics and computer science from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Dr. Martinez Negrette is an Assistant Professor with expertise in bilingual/ESL (English as a second language) education, sociolinguistics, and educational policy studies. She has worked as a language teacher in several different regions including Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Her research interests are centered on issues of language, equity, and social justice, particularly in relation to the schooling of linguistically and culturally diverse children in the United States and other regions of the world. Her research focus has led her to conduct research examining language and education in Latin America, North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Australasia. In her most recent work, Dr. Martinez Negrette investigates how emergent bilinguals in dual language immersion (DLI) programs perceive, enact, and negotiate the tenuous intersections of race, ethnicity, social class position, and language in American school settings. Her work has been recognized nationally and locally by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, and the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Aixa D. Marchand is an Assistant Professor in the Developmental Sciences Division of the Department of Educational Psychology. She also served as the Interim Assistant Director for Community Engagement at CREA (March-August 2023). Dr. Marchand obtained her PhD in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology with a certificate in African American and Diasporic Studies from the University of Michigan in 2019. Her main line of research applies an interdisciplinary lens to the societal, contextual, and cultural factors that shape the academic experiences of students of color, with a focus on Black parents' critical consciousness. More specifically, her research uses a multi-method approach to focus on the attributions that Black parents make about educational inequities and how these attributions may relate to how they engage with their children’s schools. Related work uses a strengths-based approach to investigate the way that Black immigrant parents perceive the expected relationship between home and school in relation to expectations in their home country. Dr. Marchand’s other research inquiries include a) illuminating how students and parents of color critically analyze school structures; b) elucidating how familial processes, such as familism and parent racial socialization, impact adolescents’ academic experiences and socio-emotional wellbeing; and c) the use and development of rigorous methodological tools to address societal inequities.

James D. Anderson is Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2021, Anderson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honor societies in the nation. He was sworn into the Board of Trustees at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and inducted into the Stillman College Educator Hall of Fame—both in 2020. Additionally, the AERA awarded him a Presidential Citation in 2020, its highest award. In 2012, Anderson was selected as a Fellow for Outstanding Research by the AERA and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Anderson was also elected to the National Academy of Education in 2008. His scholarship focuses broadly on the history of U.S. education, with a subfield on the history of African American education. Anderson’s seminal book, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, won the American Educational Research Association outstanding book award in 1990. From 2006 to 2016, Anderson served as senior editor of the History of Education Quarterly. In 2016, he was awarded AERA’s Palmer O. Johnson Award for best article. He served as an adviser for and participant in the PBS documentaries School: The Story of American Public Education (2001), The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow (2002), Forgotten Genius: The Percy Julian Story (2007) and Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities (2018). Among numerous honors from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Anderson was awarded the IMPACT award from the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois in 2019. In 2013, he was selected a Center for Advanced Study Professor of Education for the campus.

Katherine Ryan is a Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Her research interests focus on educational evaluation and the intersection of educational accountability issues and high stakes assessment. As educational accountability has become increasingly more important nationally and globally, her work has examined both evaluative capacity building and monitoring issues involved in test-based educational accountability. Dr. Ryan's current research includes an investigation of the intended and unintended consequences of a state-wide assessment and accountability system in relationship to students, instruction, and educational outcomes.

Thomas A. Schwandt is Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he holds appointments in the Department of Educational Psychology, the Department of Educational Policy, Organization, and Leadership and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. He has won several awards for his teaching including being named University Distinguished Teacher-Scholar in 2003; receiving the campus award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching in 2006; and receiving the Distinguished Teaching Career Award from the College of Education in 2012. He is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and in 2002 received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award from the American Evaluation Association for his contributions to evaluation theory. He is past editor of the American Journal of Evaluation. His latest book, Evaluation Foundations Revisited: Cultivating a Life of the Mind for Practice will be published by Stanford University Press in 2015.

William Trent serves as Professor Emeritus of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership in the College of Education. His professional career has included administration in higher education as an Associate Chancellor, Director of an Educational Opportunity Program, and TRIO Project Director. He currently enjoys a professorship in Education and Sociology that has afforded him the opportunity to contribute to the diversification of scholars in Education research and research in the Sociology of Education.