Rebecca Maynard

Rebecca Maynard is Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. She is a leading expert in the design and conduct of randomized controlled trials and rapid-cycle evaluation to generate actionable, equitable evidence to improve education and social policy and practice. She has conducted influential methodological research, including co-developing PowerUP!, to support efficient sample designs for causal inference studies, and she has been influential in advancing principles for and the practice of open science from pre-registration through data sharing and systematic reviewing and synthesis of evidence.

From 2010-12, she served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), where she oversaw the Institute’s evaluation initiatives, the What Works Clearinghouse, the Regional Education Laboratories, and the National Library of Education. She has served on numerous National Academy of Sciences panels, including the highly influential Panel on Child Care Policy and, most recently, the Panel on Evidence-based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response.  

She is a Fellow of the American Education Research Association, an elected member of the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology, and recipient of the Peter H. Rossi Award for Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Program Evaluation (2009) and the Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy Best Book Award for Kids Having Kids (1998). She also is past President of both the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1993, she was Senior Vice President at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

Dr. Maynard has a varied portfolio of research projects. Presently, she co-directs an initiative with Project Evident aimed at Advancing Generation and Use of Actionable Knowledge and an NSF-funded project to develop a Statistical Framework and Tools for Planning Multi-level Randomized Cost-effectiveness Trials. She also is co-directing the University of Pennsylvania’s IES Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-based Research in Education and she serves as technical advisor for an IES-funded project of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness to develop a Registry of Causal Inference Research in Education and as a member of the technical support team for the What Works Clearinghouse Statistics, Website, and Training (WWC-SWAT) project. She serves on numerous advisory boards and committees, including the advisory boards for Project Evident, Horizons National, and the Forum for World Education.