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2011 National Board for Education Sciences Annual Report
Key Personnel Appointments at IES

Rebecca Maynard became Commissioner for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance on June 14, 2010. (Although this occurred in the last reporting period, the appointment was not announced in the 2010 Annual Report.) Dr. Maynard served as University Trustee Chair Professor of Education and Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. For the previous five years, she directed the University's Predoctoral Training Program in Education Sciences, an IES-funded program that supports 26 Ph.D. students annually from Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education. She helped develop the What Works Clearinghouse, and her work was instrumental in the creation of the Campbell Collaboration, an international association of public policy professionals who work to solve societal problems through scientific research and analysis. Dr. Maynard has published numerous academic pieces over the course of her career, including a recent update of her edited volume, Kids Having Kids:The Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy. Before joining the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, she spent 18 years at Mathematica Policy Research Inc., where she served as senior vice president. Dr. Maynard earned her B.A. in economics from the University of Connecticut and her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin.

Jack Buckley was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Commissioner for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on December 22, 2010. He began work on January 3, 2011. Dr. Buckley was an associate professor of applied statistics at New York University. He also served as Deputy Commissioner of NCES from 2006 to 2008 under former commissioner Mark Schneider. Dr. Buckley was an affiliated researcher with the National Center for the Study of the Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and in 2007 he published a book with Schneider entitled Charter Schools: Hope or Hype? He has served as an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, an assistant professor at Boston College, and an instructor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Buckley spent five years in the U.S. Navy as a surface warfare officer and nuclear reactor engineer, and he also worked as an analytic methodologist at the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Buckley earned his bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University, and holds a doctorate and master's degree in political science, with a focus on statistical methodology and public policy, from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Ruth Curran Neild became Associate Commissioner for Knowledge Utilization at the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance on January 31, 2011. Her scholarly interests focus on the transition to ninth grade; high school graduation and dropouts; high school reform; high school choice; and teacher quality. Much of her work has involved analyses of longitudinal administrative data sets from school districts and data merged across agencies. Prior to joining IES, Dr. Neild was a research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University. There, she was the Co-Principal Investigator of a randomized trial of two curricula for helping high school freshmen who are underprepared in mathematics to succeed in Algebra 1. Her publications have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, in popular journals for practitioners, and as broadly disseminated research reports. Dr. Neild earned her bachelor's degree in history and sociology from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.