Melanie is an SDP Data Fellow (Cohort 13) and a Research Specialist at the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE). 
 
In her role at RIDE, she serves on RIDE’s internal research team, which led the development of RIDE’s research agenda and is supporting the ongoing evaluation of RIDE’s District Support Program. Melanie also assists with the development of RIDE’s new Strategic Planning System, specifically the data visualization tool. Lastly, she proudly leads a cross-office (and, soon, cross-level) research group in investigating what policy-relevant school-level factors are most supportive of multilingual learners’ achievement in math.
 
Prior to joining RIDE, Melanie completed her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin with a Portfolio in Applied Statistical Modeling. Her research interests lay at the intersection of adolescent development and education psychology, and her dissertation investigated racial and socioeconomic bias in U.S. teachers’ use of messaging that helps students feel that their choice to engage in classroom learning is freely-made (vs. compelled). Melanie earned her B.S. and M.S. in Human Development from Cornell University.