Position Overview

About AERDF

AERDF (Advanced Education Research & Development Fund) is a national nonprofit organization launched in 2021 that advances scientific discovery & inventions that further learners’ brilliance and transform their PreK-12 futures. AERDF’s ambitious three-to-five-year initiatives (known as programs), funded with budgets up to $25 million, address major teaching and learning challenges and opportunities the public and private sector have historically ignored for Black and Latino learners and learners experiencing poverty in the United States. Since AERDF’s launch, its programs – currently focused on math, formative assessment, and reading – have engaged more than 20,000 students. Learn more about AERDF and our programs at https://aerdf.org.

Assessment for Good (AFG), which sits within AERDF, is an Inclusive R&D program focused on dramatically improving conditions for the academic, emotional, and social wellbeing of learners aged 8 through 13, with a special focus on Black and Latinx populations. By leveraging an asset-based approach to assessment, relevant information that values the diversity of student and educator experiences can be used to create an environment that is rich in opportunities to thrive.

Role Summary

The Research team seeks a Senior Research Scientist to join a passionate and dedicated group of talented people focused on the creation and validation of anti-racist, anti-ableist formative assessment tools in the area of whole-child development (including the “Core Levers” of: Emotional Development, Engagement, Belonging, Executive Function, Learning Time, Social Development). In this role, you will help ensure the scientific rigor of the assessment program, primarily by ensuring that the data collected in our assessment tools aligns with our scoring and measurement models. Innovative approaches to assessment, including innovative prototype design, the use of telemetry / process data, and latent class analyses, are a large part of this work. You will work closely with our Product team of software designers and engineers, our Implementation team of liaisons to site-based partners, and a handful of external partners who support the work of the Research team. You will manage up to two Research Scientists as well as projects with external partners. In this role, you will report to the Scientific Director, Research. 

You will join your colleagues on work-based retreats at various locales across the continental U.S. several times a year for approximately a week at a time.

AERDF is a fully remote organization, and employees may work anywhere in the United States.

We are deeply committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. People of all backgrounds and identities, particularly those with the lived experience of the students and communities we serve, are encouraged to apply.  Please do not hesitate to apply even if you do not meet all of the qualifications.

Core Responsibilities

As the Senior Research Scientist , you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Collaboratively design and deploy formative assessment tools, and in doing so, collect evidence to support the claims in our validity argument. You will co-lead a strong measurement program that requires responsiveness and flexibility in research tasks. 
  • You’ll work within the AFG theory of action and use evidence-centered design principles to develop formative assessment tools that impact how the field approaches asset-based measurement.
  • Use your knowledge and expertise in innovative assessment methods, including use of process data, latent-class models, and/or AI capabilities, to contribute to the development of measurement models and assessment tools that contribute to the measurement field at large.
  • You’ll execute these efforts aligned with the data policies and practices required by AERDF and AFG. This includes co-leading multiple, complex research projects that will be at various stages of development at the same time. 
• Help manage a complex research program involving multiple partners and studies requiring frequent communication and coordination with the internal research group, external R&D teams and partners, and the AFG team at large. We follow an aggressive path of scientific discovery leveraging new insights on child development that are gathered from the assessment prototypes generated by AFG and our R&D partners. 
  • Collaborate within the Research group; with the Director of Strategy to integrate innovative measures into original delivery mechanisms; and with the Associate Director of Implementation to ensure R&D efforts involve our priority communities. 
  • Support the integration of a robust data analytic infrastructure across Research, Product, and Implementation, to inform insights and strategic recommendations from our internal work and external R&D teams. 
• Help iterate on the flexible infrastructure needed for research at AFG, which is a highly agile, inclusive research and development environment. 
• Support the processes for transformational research at AFG which coalesces educators, practitioners, learners, caregivers, developers, and researchers towards an emancipatory framework for R&D. 
  • This research strategy includes both internal and external research activities that lead to the creation of assessment measure prototypes that reflect a developmental approach to measuring constructs, domains,and indicators associated with AFG’s Core Levers. 
  • These processes include the coordination of and adherence to human subjects research approvals, internal approval protocols associated with our assessment prototypes, and coordination of internal approvals through AERDF for human subjects research. 
• Execute on-the-ground research in collaboration with our Research Scientists, R&D teams, and a small group of contractors, ensuring all of the components for creating new assessment tools that capture the dynamic experiences of learners and educators in K12 settings.
• Work with the Research group to set annual goals, quarterly objectives, and key results for our integrated research and development strategy that elevates new frontiers in the formative assessment. Lead pieces of this work.
• Ensure AFG is able to contribute to the larger scientific community through conference presentations and research-based publications that meet the dissemination needs of our program. This includes leading peer-reviewed publications and similar contributions that reflect our program’s scientific discoveries. 
• Coordinate and support multi-level research projects with external partners in service of generating promising assessment items, measures, and tools.
• Contribute to an inclusive team culture and operating norms that center our team’s and organization’s values to bring together the unique arms of our work across research, product, and partnerships in service of our mission and commitment to inclusive R&D. 

Qualifications

Skills and Mindsets

• A demonstrated commitment to embedding diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in daily work and research priorities.
• Passion for supporting innovation and pursuing excellence with Black and Latinx students in traditional and non-traditional education spaces.
• A high degree of self-awareness and a relationship orientation that inspires and motivates others. 
• A passion for learning and continuous improvement. 
• A professional charge of ensuring equity for those most underserved by our current educational system; have shown commitment to creating and contributing to equity-centered courageous team cultures and have a desire to spend every day working towards this outcome. 
• An excitement for the ambiguity and pace that comes with working in a start-up environment and experience navigating shifting priorities and responsibilities

Experience 

• An advanced degree in an area directly relevant to educational assessment (e.g., developmental psychology, measurement, learning sciences).
• You have at least 5 years of professional experience in successfully leading large-scale research projects from conception to dissemination of findings; research project management; authoring and/or revising assessment items. Individuals with a specialization in measurement and/or psychology (e.g., clinical, social, or developmental), educational psychology, or learning sciences are especially encouraged to apply.
• You have substantial knowledge of how to leverage advanced statistical and computational analytic tools to determine learner growth across multidimensional constructs. Individuals with understanding of the use of large-language models and /or analysis of process data in the development and refinement of assessments are especially encouraged to apply.
• You have experience formally mentoring junior scholars with diverse backgrounds and experiences, including establishing performance expectations, supporting professional learning, providing human-centered, constructive feedback on work, and / or evaluating work performance.
• You recognize that the systems that surround our learners are inequitable, and you believe in a theory of change centered around making the assets of Black and Latinx learners visible. 
• You are deeply committed to creating a new system of assessment that focuses on student experience and wellbeing, which will lead to better secondary and post-secondary outcomes.
• You have successfully worked in some of the contexts in which AFG works, such as: schools, out of school, and / or community partnerships, assessment development and deployment, educator training around formative assessment, and/ or tech-enabled assessment. 
• You’re driven for impact and results and have a track record of successfully executing projects to completion, in a collaborative and asset-based way. 
• You know when input or clarity is needed and have no problem asking for help. You can quickly sift through information and inputs to identify what is most important and/or urgent to resolve and have shown resourcefulness in your past experiences to unblocking blockers.
• You know how to use and build supportive operational systems across Google applications, Slack, Asana, Airtable, Notion, Jira, and the like or are eager to learn quickly. New products and systems don’t intimidate you, but instead energize you as a key element of project implementation. 
• You are able to effectively work in a remote environment and are able to travel up to 35% for in-person team meetings, retreats, partner visits, research implementation, convenings, and conferences as it is safe to do so. This percentage may fluctuate across the year depending upon our research needs. 

Compensation Expectations

We offer a competitive compensation package including base salary and comprehensive benefits.  AERDF is a remote and flexible work environment. Our base compensation levels vary depending on location, experience, and qualifications.

The base salary range for this role is $117,450 A to $169,650.

• For the states of California and New York, the base salary range is: $127,140 to $169,650.
• For the state of Washington, the base salary range is: $112,470 to $150,075.
• For the states of Colorado, Hawaii, and Nevada, the base salary range is: $107,580 to $143,550.