Description of Research Expertise

Professional Biography

Dr. Naughton is a senior fellow and director of the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management at Penn GSE. His teaching and research interests focus on higher education public policy, accountability, finance, and quality.

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn in the fall of 2008, he served as an education policy analyst with the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the confidential, nonpartisan policy think tank supporting members and committees of Congress. His portfolio at CRS included higher education and job training issues, providing analytic support for the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. He previously served as assistant professor of education and of management at Northwest Missouri State University, where he held concurrent appointments as the founding director of an interdisciplinary master’s degree program in quality management and as adjunct faculty in the University of Missouri Statewide Cooperative Doctor of Education Program.

Dr. Naughton’s prior research experience includes positions at the Stanford Education Assessment Laboratory and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, while his prior teaching experience includes adjunct appointments at State Fair Community College and George Washington University. He also served as a research associate with the Missouri Department of Higher Education, with duties including regulation of proprietary institutions and statewide coordinated planning. In addition to extensive experience in student affairs as an undergraduate and graduate student, he worked professionally in the field while at Truman State University, serving as a residential college director and coordinator of campus activities.