Dr. Elizabeth Albro
Acting NCER Commissioner

Albro joined the U.S. Department of Education in 2002 as a Society for Research in Child Development/American Association for the Advancement of Science Policy Fellow at the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. She subsequently served as an education research analyst at the Institute of Education Sciences. In that role, she served as the program officer for multiple research grant topics, including Cognition and Student Learning, Reading and Writing Education, and Interventions for Struggling Adolescent and Adult Readers and Writers. In 2007, she was named Associate Commissioner for the Teaching and Learning Division of the National Center for Education Research. Prior to joining the Department, Albro served on the Psychology faculty at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She has also served on the Child Development and Education faculty at Whittier College, and as lead preschool teacher at the Cochabamba Cooperative School in Bolivia. Albro served on review panels for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and reviewed for journals such as Social Development, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, and Narrative Inquiry. Albro's research has focused on the development of young children's narrative understanding, a foundation of early reading comprehension. In addition, she has explored the ways in which preschool children's memory for interpersonal experiences contributes to their socio-emotional well-being. She has authored journal articles and chapters on both of these topics. Albro received her B.A. in behavioral sciences, her M.A. in the social sciences, and her Ph.D. in psychology with a focus on cognition and communication from the University of Chicago.