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Our Team

Carrie Scholz

Carrie Scholz

REL Midwest Director; Engagement and Achievement Through Computational Thinking (ENACT), Wisconsin
Carrie Scholz, PhD, serves as director of REL Midwest and is a managing researcher at AIR. She also serves as the director of the REL Midwest ENACT partnership in Wisconsin. Dr. Scholz is co-principal investigator for Preparing Urban Milwaukee for Pathways in Computer Science, a researcher–practitioner partnership funded by the National Science Foundation. Dr. Scholz has more than 12 years of experience supporting partners in implementing and measuring research-based strategies to address specific educational needs. During her career, Dr. Scholz has led national working groups for the Institute of Education Sciences on collaborative research partnerships, teacher effectiveness, and the REL program’s response to COVID-19. She served as a steering committee member for the National Network of Education Research–Practice Partnerships and coauthored the Tool for Assessing the Health of Research–Practice Partnerships. Dr. Scholz completed her doctorate in educational policy studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago.


Chad Duhon

Chad Duhon

Deputy Director
Chad Duhon, MA, PMP, is deputy director of REL Midwest and a managing director at AIR. Much of Duhon’s work focuses on research and technical assistance in college and career readiness and success and school improvement. In his role at REL Midwest, Duhon works with the director to provide guidance for projects that help Midwestern practitioners, schools, districts, and states use data to inform decisions to improve outcomes for students and educators. Duhon oversees project teams, manages budgets, coordinates quality assurance procedures, and communicates with clients. Previously, Duhon served as REL Midwest’s technical assistance lead and as project manager of the College and Career Readiness and Success Center and the National High School Center. At AIR, Duhon also has led projects monitoring low-performing schools in Massachusetts. Duhon is a certified Project Management Professional. Duhon earned his master’s degree in education policy from George Washington University.


Katie Dahlke

Katie Dahlke

Applied Research Task Lead
Katie Dahlke, PhD, is the applied research lead for REL Midwest and a principal researcher at AIR. She also is the REL Southwest partnership lead for a researcher–practitioner partnership in Oklahoma focused on developing and testing a new early childhood professional learning intervention for elementary school leaders. She is principal investigator for various early childhood education studies, including evaluations of social and emotional learning interventions and an evaluation of a REL Southwest Toolkit designed to improve early literacy practices. She has also led numerous other studies, including a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design study of full-day kindergarten in Pennsylvania, validation studies of kindergarten entry assessments in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, and a descriptive study of early educator practices and supports in Massachusetts. Her work includes quasi-experimental and experimental research and evaluation design, examination of implementation fidelity, evaluations for continuous quality improvement, implementation and outcome measure development, and quantitative and qualitative analysis. Dr. Dahlke holds doctoral and master’s degrees in human development and social policy from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in social work from the University of South Carolina–Columbia.


Emily Loney

Emily Loney

Dissemination Task Lead
Emily Loney, MPP, PMP, is the dissemination task lead for REL Midwest and a senior researcher at AIR. As REL Midwest task lead, Loney leads REL Midwest’s communication and engagement activities to connect evidence and research with the broader field. Loney is the project manager and dissemination lead of the Institute of Education Sciences–funded Career and Technical Education Research Network, managing the project plan and budget for a project focused on building collaboration among research teams focused on career and technical education. Previously, Loney was the project director of the IES-funded College Completion Network and project director of operations for a multiyear technical assistance and evaluation project focused on postsecondary institutional transformation. Loney earned a master of public policy degree from Duke University and is a certified Project Management Professional.


Orrin Murray

Orrin Murray

Partnership Task Lead
Orrin Murray, PhD, is the partnership lead for REL Midwest and a principal researcher at AIR. Dr. Murray supports partnership managers in the design and development of partnership strategy, and works to broaden REL Midwest capabilities to support districts and state agencies in adopting culturally responsive practices. He leads the implementation efforts of several evaluations focused on affecting student social emotional and academic development in middle grades. Prior to joining AIR, he managed technology infrastructure and led research and development efforts for the UChicago Impact unit of the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago. He has overseen the design and development of curricula and tools used by educators nationwide. He worked closely with applied researchers and K?12 educators to design and develop the Cultivate framework and reporting site. Dr. Murray holds a doctorate in education from the University of Michigan.


Jaime Singer

Jaime Singer

Training, Coaching, and Technical Support Task Lead
Jaime Singer, MA, PMP, is the training, coaching, and technical support lead for REL Midwest and a principal technical assistance consultant at AIR. In her role at REL Midwest, she collaborates with partnership leads and leadership team members, project leads, and state education agency staff to design and implement responsive projects to build the capacity of REL Midwest stakeholders to engage in and use data and research for continuous improvement. Singer is a skilled facilitator and trainer in the formal and informal education field. She has directed work at the federal, state, and local levels, with a focus on bridging research and practice through learning opportunities that encompass the principles of adult learning and that are grounded in evidence. She is a certified Project Management Professional. Singer earned a master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Tulsa.


Alicia Espinoza

Alicia Espinoza

Data-Informed Leadership for Equity (DILE), Iowa
Alicia Espinoza, MA, is a senior technical assistance consultant at AIR and co-director for DILE. Espinoza brings over 20 years of experience as a teacher, teacher leader, and director. Her last 15 years have been focused on leading teams through comprehensive school improvement efforts. Her expertise lies in providing professional learning and coaching to teacher leaders, school and district administrators, and state leaders in the implementation of evidence-based practices in curriculum, instruction, and assessment, designed to meet the needs of historically marginalized student populations. She has served as the project lead for the Iowa Equitable Instruction Project under the Region 9 Comprehensive Center. In this role, she helped to build the Iowa Department of Education’s capacity to support districts as they implement, monitor, and continuously improve equitable instructional practices to support increased student achievement for historically underperforming students. She is presently serving as the project director for the federally funded Region 1 Equity Assistance Center. She oversees a diverse portfolio of projects that work to ensure that public schools are equipped to educate all learners to high academic standards and outcomes regardless of race, sex, religion, national origin, or socioeconomic status.


Gurjeet (Sonica) Dhillona

Gurjeet (Sonica) Dhillona

Data-Informed Leadership for Equity (DILE), Iowa
Gurjeet (Sonica) Dhillon, MA, PMP, is a senior researcher at AIR and co-project director for DILE. Dhillon is a certified Project Management Professional, and has more than 10 years of experience (1) evaluating program impact and the relationship between student and adult mindsets and behaviors, student social and emotional learning and development, and student academic achievement, (2) examining and providing formative feedback on program implementation, and (3) supporting client and partner use of data and data visualization for decision making. She has extensive experience managing complex, cross-organization research and technical assistance projects, and is knowledgeable about implementation practices that support program adoption. Dhillon received a master’s degree in social science from the University of Chicago.


Dominique Bradley

Dominique Bradley

Engagement and Achievement Through Computational Thinking (ENACT), Wisconsin
Dominique Bradley, PhD, PMP, is a senior researcher at AIR and partnership manager for ENACT. Dr. Bradley has more than 12 years of experience in education research and project management. Her areas of expertise are frameworks for implementation evaluation and program evaluation, research–practice partnerships, improvement science, evaluations of community school initiatives, and qualitative research methods. Her previous REL Midwest responsibilities included serving as coach and trainer to help stakeholders better understand and use research and better understand how to conduct policy and practice scans. Dr. Bradley also is the qualitative lead and project director on several community school evaluations, including the Chicago Public Schools Community Schools Initiative, as well as researcher and project director on several federally and privately funded grants. She holds a Project Management Professional certification, a master’s degree in sociology, and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.


Kelly Reese

Kelly Reese

Employability Skills Partnership (ESP), Indiana
Kelly Reese, MPP, is a senior researcher at AIR and leads REL Midwest’s work in Indiana. Reese has 12 years of experience conducting mixed-methods education research, leading teams of researchers, and providing analytic support to clients at the federal, state, and local levels as well as within national nonprofit and postsecondary institutions. She focuses on career and technical education systems and career pathways from K–12 to postsecondary with industry partnerships; college and career readiness initiatives, including programs to help persistence in higher education; early grade to postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics interventions; and teacher professional development systems and programs. Reese is part of the Career and Technical Education Research Network at AIR. She earned a master of public policy degree from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies.


Natalya Gnedko-Berry

Natalya Gnedko-Berry

Supporting Inclusive and Diverse Educator Environments (SIDEE), Minnesota
Natalya Gnedko-Berry, PhD, is a principal researcher at AIR. She brings 16 years of experience designing and conducting rigorous research and evaluation studies and content expertise in K–12 educator preparation and quality. She is a partnership director for the Supporting Inclusive and Diverse Educator Environments (SIDEE) partnership and principal investigator for the study of facilitators and barriers to teaching majors completing their degrees. A certified What Works Clearinghouse reviewer, she is a task lead for the development of a What Works Clearinghouse practice guide that will synthesize research evidence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for practitioners under Preschool-to-Postsecondary Evidence Synthesis Task Orders (WWC-PESTO). From 2017 to 2022, and she led the REL Midwest alliance to improve teacher preparation, producing four applied studies, six technical assistance projects, and 20 engagement products, resulting in policy changes in Michigan to address teacher shortages. Dr. Gnedko-Berry is skilled in developing researcher–practitioner partnerships and disseminating research results through media for different audiences. She holds a master’s degree in applied social psychology and a doctorate in research methodology from Loyola University Chicago.


Jennie Jiang

Jennie Jiang

Supporting Inclusive and Diverse Educator Environments (SIDEE), Minnesota
Jennie Jiang, MPP, MS, is a senior researcher at AIR and partnership manager for SIDEE. She has led several large mixed-methods studies on teacher development, preparation, and support. She has also designed and led several qualitative studies to understand participant experiences with and implementation of policies and programs. Jiang is the project director of a multiyear IES-funded study evaluating social-emotional learning pandemic recovery programs. She has worked closely with school districts, state-level agencies, and community organizations to translate research findings into actionable, understandable, and relevant practices that improve programs and policies. Before her career in education research, Jiang was a certified middle school teacher in Chicago Public Schools. She earned a master of public policy degree from the University of Chicago and a master of science in elementary education from Northwestern University.


Aleksis Kincaid

Aleksis Kincaid

Strategies to Improve Reading (STIR), Michigan
Aleksis Kincaid, PhD, is a senior researcher at AIR and partnership director for the Strategies to Improve Reading (STIR) partnership in Michigan. Dr. Kincaid’s areas of expertise include multi-tiered systems of support, school and district improvement, special education, assessment, and academic and behavioral interventions. He currently leads a project focused on supporting students with disabilities in alternative settings, leads the review process used to evaluate the technical rigor of academic and behavior assessments and interventions that appear on the NCII tools charts, and supports the REL Southwest Providing Interventions for Students in Middle Schools (PRISMS) partnership as the lead developer of an assessment tool educators will use to align their current instructional practices with evidence-based practices in reading. Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Kincaid worked as a licensed school psychologist, multi-tiered system of supports coordinator, and consultant for the state of Minnesota’s early childhood ratings program. He holds a doctorate in educational psychology with an emphasis in school psychology from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.


Billie Jo Day

Billie Jo Day

Strategies to Improve Reading (STIR), Michigan
Billie Jo Day, PhD, is a senior researcher in the Education Systems & Policy program at AIR and partnership manager for the Strategies to Improve Reading (STIR) partnership in Michigan. Dr. Day’s work centers on school transitions and early literacy. She is experienced in working with state and local education leaders to design, plan, and implement evidence-based practices that are responsive to local needs. Dr. Day served as the partnership lead for REL Midwest’s Midwest Early Childhood Education Research Alliance, a research–practice partnership that supported early literacy efforts of districts in Illinois. She is currently co-director of an IES-funded early literacy project and is the relationship manager for intermediaries on an evaluation project funded by a large foundation. Prior to joining AIR, she was a research assistant with the Chicago Consortium on School Research at the University of Chicago. Dr. Day earned her master of education in higher education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her doctorate from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.


Kyle Fagan

Kyle Fagan

Making Equitable Schools Audit (MESA), Ohio
Kyle Fagan, PhD, is a senior researcher in the Education Systems & Policy program at AIR and partnership director for the Making Equitable Schools Audit (MESA) partnership. Dr. Fagan partners with state, regional, and local agencies on research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects at the intersection of educational and community change. His work is primarily focused on addressing issues of equity through collaborative networks. Dr. Fagan previously served as the partnership facilitator of the Midwest Achievement Gap Research Alliance, a five-year collaborative research partnership in REL Midwest focused on improving educational outcomes among Black students in the region. Dr. Fagan is skilled in a range of data collection and analysis methods, with a focus on mixed-methods research and evaluation designs and social network analysis. He holds a master’s degree in applied developmental and educational psychology and a doctorate in leadership, policy, and educational change from Boston College.


Jameela Conway-Turner

Jameela Conway-Turner

Making Equitable Schools Audit (MESA), Ohio
Jameela Conway-Turner, PhD, is a senior researcher at AIR and partnership manager for Making Equitable Schools Audit (MESA). Dr. Conway-Turner provides research and evaluation support to programs with a focus on youth development and creating safe and supportive environments for youth both in school and out of school. Dr. Conway-Turner works to bridge the gap between research and policy and practice by conducting studies that examine the use of research evidence, working with stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions, and examining the impact of programs, policies, and practices. She also emphasizes the importance of data visualization and writes reports for various audiences to disseminate research findings. Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Conway-Turner was a policy fellow for the Society for Research in Child Development at the National Institute of Justice, working on the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative. She holds a doctorate in applied developmental psychology from George Mason University.


Yinmei Wan

Yinmei Wan

Teaching Fractions Toolkit (TFT), Illinois
Yinmei Wan, PhD, is a senior researcher at AIR and partnership director for the Teaching Fractions Toolkit (TFT) project with REL Midwest. Dr. Wan has played leading roles on three experimental and two quasi-experimental studies funded by the U.S. Department of Education related to teacher preparation and teacher professional learning. She has led REL applied research projects and authored or coauthored 15 REL reports and products. She also has led REL technical assistance and coaching projects with state education agencies in Minnesota and Ohio to develop and test surveys and tools that districts and schools can use to improve teacher evaluation, teacher retention, and teacher leadership development practices. Dr. Wan leads the help desk effort on the WWC Statistics, Website, and Training team, and has been a WWC reviewer since 2012. She earned a doctorate in higher education from the University of Michigan.


Melinda Griffin

Melinda Griffin

Teaching Fractions Toolkit (TFT), Illinois
Melinda Griffin, PhD, is a researcher at AIR and partnership manager for the Teaching Fractions Toolkit (TFT) project with REL Midwest, working on research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects, with a focus on K–16 mathematics instruction and teacher development. Her responsibilities include supporting projects to increase student engagement with high school mathematics through teacher use of improvement science, working with teachers to use video-based coaching to improve standards alignment in elementary mathematics classrooms, developing projects to improve middle school teachers’ questioning and discussion-leading skills using technology-based coaching, and working with a state department of education to improve mathematics instruction for learning-disabled and struggling students. Dr. Griffin has also provided technical assistance to educators and administrators in struggling schools and districts. Previously, she was a mathematics specialist for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She holds a doctorate in educational policy, planning, and leadership from The College of William and Mary.


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