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People

Meet the leadership, team members, faculty affiliates, graduate students, undergraduate students, and alumni who make up the STEPP Center.

Our Leadership

Elizabeth Tipton

Elizabeth Tipton

Co-Director of the STEPP Center; IPR Fellow

tipton@northwestern.edu
Website
Twitter

Elizabeth Tipton is a Professor of Statistics and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. She is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics and is on the Editorial Boards of Psychological Bulletin, Research Synthesis Methods, and Observational Studies. Her work has been funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the Raikes Foundation. While a member of the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, Elizabeth received Early Career Awards from the American Education Research Association, the Society for Research Synthesis Methods, and the American Psychological Association. She is the 2020 recipient of the Campbell Collective’s Frederick Mosteller Award for an important contribution to the theory, method, or practice of systematic reviewing. Elizabeth received a Ph.D. in Statistics from Northwestern in 2011.

Larry V. Hedges

Larry V. Hedges

Co-Director of the STEPP Center; IPR Fellow

l-hedges@northwestern.edu
Website

Larry V. Hedges is Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics at Northwestern University. He is Chair of the Department of Statistics, with appointments as a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, the School of Education & Social Policy the Department of Psychology, and the Weinberg School of Medicine. Larry is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Statistical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Educational Research Association. He co-founded the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and was honored by the establishment of the annual Hedges Lecture in 2016. Larry received the Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2018. Prior to Northwestern, he was the Stella M. Rowley Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1980.

Chris Klager

Chris Klager

Research Associate

Chris Klager is a Research Associate in the STEPP Center where he directs research projects. He is interested in the translation and communication of evidence about educational programs for policymakers and practitioners. He received a Ph.D. in Education Policy from Michigan State University in 2020.

Our Team

Valerie Lyne

Valerie Lyne

Research Project Coordinator

Valerie Lyne is the STEPP Center’s research project coordinator. Prior to joining Northwestern in 2008, Valerie worked as a research assistant at the University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research and the State of Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.

Faculty Affiliates

John Bullock

John Bullock

Associate Professor of Political Science

Areas: Experiments and Causal Inference

About John Bullock

Jessica Hullman

Jessica Hullman

Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering and Medill School of Journalism

Areas: Data visualization, experiments, text-analysis

About Jessica Hullman

Mary McGrath

Mary McGrath

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Areas: Experiments, Meta-Analysis

About Mary McGrath

Blake McShane

Blake McShane

Associate Professor of Marketing

Areas: Meta-analysis, Hierarchical models

About Blake McShane

Lincoln Quillian

Lincoln Quillian

Professor of Sociology

Areas: Meta-analysis, discrete choice, microsimulation, demographic techniques

About Lincoln Quillian

Jacob M. Schauer

Jacob M. Schauer

Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine

Areas:

About Jacob Schauer

Bruce Spencer

Bruce Spencer

Professor of Statistics

Areas: Accuracy of statistical measurements, use of statistics for policy, cost-benefit analysis of statistics, sampling methods

About Bruce Spencer

Graduate Students

Michael Armah

Michael Armah

Gracie Hayes

Gracie Hayes

Matthew Forte

Matthew Forte

Tim Ruel

Tim Ruel

Research interests include: Markov chain Monte Carlo methods

Judy Zhang

Judy Zhang

Undergraduate Students

Maya Mubayi

Maya Mubayi

Alumni

Karina G. Diaz

Karina G. Diaz

Research Specialist at University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

About Karina G. Diaz

Zhipeng Hou

Zhipeng Hou

Research interests include: systematic review, automation and meta-analysis

About Zhipeng Hou

Thomas Ippolito

Thomas Ippolito

Research interests include: causal inference for time series analysis, event study methodology, social statistics, and public policy research.

Sarah Peko-Spicer

Sarah Peko-Spicer

Researcher, American Institutes for Research

Rrita Zejnullahi

Rrita Zejnullahi

Clinical Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, UIC

Lauren Chandler Holtz

Lauren Chandler Holtz