Description of Research Expertise

Areas of Expertise

Policy effects on teaching and learning in the core academic subjects
Policy implementation
Improvement of methods for studying policy implementation and effects

Professional Biography

Dr. Desimone joined the faculty as associate professor in 2007. Before that, she served on the faculty at Vanderbilt University, worked as a senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research, and was a post-doctoral research associate at Yale University's Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. She also was a researcher at RAND in Washington, D.C., and at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Dr. Desimone studies how state, district, and school-level policy can better promote changes in teaching that lead to improved student achievement and to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Dr. Desimone’s research covers three main areas: policy effects on teaching and learning, policy implementation, and the improvement of methods for studying policy effects and implementation (e.g., improving surveys and using multiple methodologies). She studies all levels of the system (national, state, district, school, and classroom), and focuses on three policy areas at the forefront of education reform: standards-based reform, comprehensive school reform, and teacher quality initiatives (e.g., teachers’ professional development, induction and mentoring).

Dr. Desimone’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including American Education Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Her work has been supported by grants from the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Dr. Desimone was a National Academy of Education post-doctoral fellow in 2002-2003.

Dr. Desimone has served in technical advisory roles to several national organizations, including the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, the Comprehensive School Reform Clearinghouse, and the National Study of No Child Left Behind. She has been on the editorial boards of Educational Administration Quarterly and Educational Researcher. She is currently principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Teacher’s Professional Continuum grant awarded in April 2006 — a five-year study of new middle-school mathematics teachers in several districts in four states, charting the effects of their induction/professional development on knowledge growth, changes in instruction, and improvements in student achievement. She is senior investigator on a five-year research randomized control trial, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), to test the effectiveness of the use of cognitive science principles in middle school science instruction, in improving instruction and student learning. Her other research examines the relationship between policy, professional development, and instruction aligned to standards and assessments. She is also studying the role of teacher and teaching quality in closing the achievement gap in the early grades. She is co-director of Penn GSE’s IES pre-doctoral fellows training program and director of Penn GSE’s postdoctoral fellows program.