REL Central Director
Trudy Cherasaro is the director of research at Marzano Research and director of REL Central. She leads the REL Central team and works with the region's state and local educators and policymakers to develop the research and support that they need to improve academic outcomes for students.
Cherasaro brings 15 years of experience in conducting evaluations and directing research to the helm of REL Central. Through this experience, she has gained research expertise in study design, instrument development, and data analysis, visualization, and reporting, as well as content expertise in student assessment, educator evaluation, teacher preparation, early childhood education, and gifted education.
For REL Central, Cherasaro has coordinated partnerships and led two applied research studies related to feedback in educator evaluation systems, and she is lead author on four IES publications. Previous to her work at REL Central, she coordinated research and program evaluation for Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia, and served as study director on an IES-funded, large-scale randomized controlled trial of a supplemental vocabulary program, co-authoring a peer-reviewed journal article about the findings. Cherasaro has also led district- and state-level research on educator effectiveness.
Cherasaro received her doctorate in educational psychology, with an emphasis in research and evaluation, from the University of Virginia. She is a What Works Clearinghouse-certified reviewer for single-case and group-design standards.