Advisory Members

AAAAC

Assessment, Accountability and Accreditation Advisory Committee

The AAAAC provides support to PED with policy and program matters related to assessment and accountability.

TAC

Technical Advisory Committee

TAC Member Bios

Scott Marion, Ph.D. (Chair)

Scott Marion partners with Associate Director Chris Domaleski to manage the operations of the Center for Assessment, and he works closely with the Center Board of Directors to establish the long- and short-term strategic direction of the organization. He is also actively engaged with Center clients; his projects include designing and supporting states in implementing assessment and accountability reforms, developing and implementing educator evaluation systems, and designing and implementing high quality, locally-designed performance-based assessments. He is a national leader in designing innovative and comprehensive assessment systems to support instructional and accountability uses, including helping states and districts design systems of assessments for evaluating student learning of identified competencies. Scott coordinates and/or serves on five district or state Technical Advisory Committees (TACs).

Happy Miller, Ph.D.

Happy Miller is the Executive Director of Research, Assessment, Data and Accountability at Rio Rancho Public Schools in New Mexico. Dr. Miller has an M.A. in ESL and Ph.D. in Organizational Learning. She has fourteen years of experience teaching ESL and Reading at the elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels, one year of experience as a school principal, and eighteen years of experience in a district role. She has taken leadership roles in assessment throughout her career, participating in the development of performance tasks, Reading First, and NCLB assessments in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, serving on the New Mexico Assessment and Accountability Advisory Committee for fourteen years and participating in the National Taskforce on Assessment Education. She has been honored with a number of awards including the 2002 CCSSO State Teacher of the Year for the CNMI, the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning Pacific Educator Award, the CNMI Public Service Recognition Award, and the New Mexico School Boards Association Excellence for Student Achievement Award.

Anne H. Davidson, Ed.D.

Anne H. Davidson is Founder and Principal Associate of CrescendoEd, LLC. Dr. Davidson has 25 years of experience in educational measurement, applied psychometrics, and teacher preparation. She has served public and private organizations in both leadership and technical roles, including CTB/McGraw-Hill, Nevada Department of Education, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, and EdMetric. Her expertise centers on diverse assessment programs with particular focus on accessibility and fairness. Dr. Davidson has conducted over 50 studies on large-scale assessment programs, and her contributions to research literature include authoring papers for the National Assessment Governing Board, peer-reviewed journals, and numerous national and international conferences. She currently serves on technical advisory committees for multiple states as well as having served as a peer reviewer for the United States Department of Education. She holds a doctorate from University of Vermont.

Okan Bulut, Ph.D.

Dr. Okan Bulut is a Professor in the Measurement, Evaluation, and Data Science (MEDS) program and a researcher at the Centre for Research in Applied Measurement and Evaluation at the University of Alberta. He teaches courses on educational measurement, survey design, computational psychometrics, machine learning, and statistical modeling in the Faculty of Education. Dr. Bulut’s research interests focus on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), educational data mining, and learning analytics. Using AI-powered algorithms, he develops intelligent assessment systems that can adapt to learners’ preferences, cognitive styles, and performance trajectories.

Richard Brown, Ph.D.

Richard S. Brown is the Founder and CEO of West Coast Analytics, a research and consulting firm, and the Chief Research Scientist with the National Math + Science Initiative. Formerly, he held faculty posts in the USC Rossier School of Education and the Department of Education, University of California, Irvine. At both USC and UCI, he taught courses in educational measurement, advanced statistics, and research methodology. Previously, he worked as Senior Researcher at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA. His work at CRESST involved providing technical expertise on two large-scale public school assessment initiatives, specifically in the areas of test development, measurement, and performance standard setting.

Sheryl Lazarus, Ph.D.

Sheryl Lazarus is associate director of the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) at the University of Minnesota. She provide technical assistance to states, and conducts research on, issues related to the inclusion of all students, including students with disabilities, English learners (ELs), and ELs with disabilities in assessments. Areas of focus include student participation, accessibility and accommodations, alternate assessments, technology enhanced assessments, graduation policies and diploma options. Her work covers the span of assessments in a comprehensive assessment system (e.g., large-scale assessments, interim/benchmark assessments, formative assessments). Dr. Lazarus is also the Director of TIES Center, which is the National Technical Assistance Center on Inclusive Policies and Practices for Students with the Most Significant Disabilities. She has a Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota, with a minor in Agricultural and Applied Economics. Dr. Lazarus also holds a K-12 Minnesota principal’s license. She has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, reports, and training materials. Dr. Lazarus serves on the assessment Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) of several states.

Tony Albano, Ph.D.

Tony Albano is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at UC Davis, where he teaches courses in testing, assessment, and data science. His research aims to improve teaching and learning via effective educational and psychological measurement, including improvements in psychometric methods for scaling and modeling assessment results and enhanced accessibility in test design and implementation. In addition, Dr. Albano collaborates on projects examining best practices in instruction and assessment with emergent bilingual students, computerized adaptive testing technologies in early education, and culturally responsive pedagogy in higher education.