Dr. Miguel A. Cardona was sworn in as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Education on March 2, 2021. Secretary Cardona is one of three children, whose parents moved from Puerto Rico in the 1960s for better opportunities in the mainland United States. That experience, and his bicultural upbringing, have helped shape Secretary Cardona's passion to serve all students and improve their opportunities for success. Secretary Cardona's focus throughout his career on raising the bar for equity and excellence in education for all learners guides his leadership of the U.S. Department of Education in service of the nation's 65 million students, ranging from prekindergarten to adult learners, and their families.

Secretary Cardona previously served as the commissioner of education in Connecticut, a position he held after being appointed by Governor Ned Lamont in August 2019. Secretary Cardona's approach to leadership in Connecticut focused on partnerships: within his Education Department, between state agencies, and with local boards, educator unions, school administrator associations, child advocates, and most importantly, students and families. He attributes his success in Connecticut, in part, to those strong partnerships.

Secretary Cardona has two decades of experience as a public-school educator from Meriden, Connecticut, the same school system he attended as a child. He began his career as an elementary school teacher and went on to serve as an elementary school principal, leading a school that included outstanding programming for 3- to 5-year-old students with developmental delays, students with autism and other sensory needs, and students enrolled in the district's bilingual education program. Following that role, Secretary Cardona led performance and evaluation efforts for the Meriden Public Schools and became assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. Secretary Cardona is the recipient of the 2012 National Distinguished Principal Award for the State of Connecticut and the Outstanding Administrator Award from the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education.

Secretary Cardona earned a bachelor's degree from Central Connecticut State University, a master's degree, two additional advanced leadership certifications, and a doctoral degree from the University of Connecticut. His greatest source of pride is his family. Secretary Cardona and his beautiful wife Marissa, an educator herself, are the proud parents of two children.

Before joining IES, Mark Schneider was a vice president and an Institute Fellow at American Institutes for Research (AIR) and President of College Measures. Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Schneider served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics from 2005–2008. In 2013, the Chronicle of Higher Education selected him as one of the 10 people who had the most impact on higher education policy that year.

He is the author of numerous articles and books on education policy. His most recent book, The University Next Door, edited with KC Deane, was published in 2014 by Teachers College, Columbia University. Other books include Getting to Graduation, edited with Andrew Kelly, published in 2012 by Johns Hopkins University Press and Higher Education Accountability, edited with Kevin Carey, published by Palgrave in 2010; Charter Schools: Hope or Hype? written with Jack Buckley, was published by Princeton University Press in 2007. Schneider's 2000 book, Choosing Schools, also published by Princeton University Press, won the Policy Study Organization's Aaron Wildavsky Best Book Award.

Dr. Schneider was a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political science at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Dr. Elizabeth Albro, Commissioner of Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, is committed to building bridges between the basic sciences of learning and education practice. Trained in the behavioral and social sciences, cognition, and communication, she received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago. Since joining IES in 2002, she has served as a program officer for multiple research portfolios and as Associate Commissioner of Teaching and Learning. She has participated on multiple interagency committees focused on open science and the federal research investment in language and communication. She has edited several books in the area of reading comprehension, and has published articles in Discourse Processes, Scientific Studies of Reading, and Educational Psychology Review. Prior to joining IES, Dr. Albro was a faculty member, first at, Whittier College and subsequently at Wheaton College (Norton, MA). All of her research is grounded in her own experience as a preschool teacher in Cochabamba, Bolivia

Catherine Bradshaw, Ph.D., M.Ed., is a University Professor and the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. Before her current appointment at U.Va., she was an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair of the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she maintains a faculty position. She holds a doctorate in developmental psychology from Cornell University and a Master's of education in counseling and guidance from the University of Georgia. Her primary research interests focus on the development of aggressive behavior and school-based prevention. She collaborates on research projects examining bullying and school climate; the development of aggressive and problem behaviors; effects of exposure to violence, peer victimization, and environmental stress on children; children with emotional and behavioral disorders; and the design, evaluation, and implementation of evidence-based prevention programs in schools. She has led a number of federally funded randomized trials of school-based prevention programs, including Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and social-emotional learning curricula. She also has expertise in implementation science and coaching models. Dr. Bradshaw works with the Maryland State Department of Education and several school districts to support the development and implementation of programs and policies to prevent bullying and school violence, and to foster safe and supportive learning environments. She collaborates on federally funded research grants supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, as well as NIMH, NIMHD, NICHD, NIDA, CDC, and NIJ. She has published more than 325 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in edited volumes. She was previously the Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and is currently the editor of the journal Prevention Science and senior associate editor for Social and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy. She is a co-editor of the Handbook of School Mental Health (Springer, 2014; 2023), the editor of Handbook on Bullying: A Life Course Perspective (2017), and the co-author of Preventing Bullying in Schools: A Social and Emotional Learning Approach to Prevention and Early Intervention (2020).

Dr. Jacquelyn Buckley is the Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). Dr. Buckley joined IES in 2006 where she served as a program officer, and later Team Lead for disability research at NCSER. Her primary portfolio throughout her time as Program Officer was for the Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Competence research topic. Before working at IES, Dr. Buckley was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral research fellow in prevention science at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she studied mental health and educational service use, student academic growth, school removal, and the organizational structure and context of schools. She also conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where her research focused primarily on prevention and early intervention services for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Dr. Buckley began her career with Teach For America as a special education teacher for middle school students in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Dr. Buckley received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Political Science from Saint Mary’s College and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Educational (School) Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Matthew Kraft is an Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His primary work focuses on efforts to improve educator and organizational effectiveness in U.S. public schools.

His scholarship examines efforts to improve teacher hiring, professional development, evaluation, and working conditions; the application of new approaches interpreting effect sizes in education research; and the development of school-based tutoring and mentoring programs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has published over 40 academic articles in leading education, public policy, and economics journals. His research has been cited over 10,000 times, and he is consistently ranked among the top 200 scholars on Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. Matt is regularly quoted and cited in national news outlets and has published op-eds in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is the recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Outstanding Public Communication Award, the Society for Educational Effectiveness Early Career Award, the William T. Grant Early Career Scholar Award, the Brown University Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for the most outstanding article across the seven flagship AERA journals, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. Matt holds a doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education from Harvard University as well as an M.A. in International Comparative Education and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.

Dr. Patricia Saenz-Armstrong is a Senior Economist at the National Council on Teacher Quality, where she leads the analysis of state- and district- education policy and teacher labor market and salary data to surface critical policy trends. Patricia has studied the data availability in states that would help them identify teacher shortages and the distribution of their teacher talent. Before joining NCTQ, she worked in think tanks, business associations, government agencies and international organizations both in her native Lima, Peru and in the United States. Patricia earned her PhD in Economics from George Mason University and her master's degree in Economics from Texas A&M University.

Maura Spiegelman is a statistician at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, where she serves as the study director for the National Teacher and Principal Survey. She joined NCES in 2015 and has over 15 years of experience in survey research, data collection, and program evaluation. She holds a PhD in survey methodology from the University of Maryland.