CREATE Officers and Board of Directors
| Dr. Susan Colby, President Susan Colby is the Director of Faculty Professional Development in the Center for Academic Excellence and professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Appalachian State University. Prior to her work in educational development, she served as chair and assistant chair in the department for twelve years. Susan earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from East Carolina University; her MA in Administration, Curriculum and Supervision from the University of Colorado, Denver; and her BS in Elementary Education with Distinction from the University of Minnesota. In 2002, she was the recipient of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration Morphet Dissertation Award. In the public schools, she served as principal, Title I director, clinical professor, and teacher. Her research interests include assessment of student learning, teacher preparation program effectiveness, and the evaluation of preservice and practicing teachers. Her published articles have appeared in journals such as Studies in Educational Evaluation; Reading Research and Instruction; Action in Teacher Education; Teaching Education; Multicultural Education; and Educational Leadership. Dr. Steven Bingham, President-Elect Steven Bingham is Professor of Education at High Point University and Founding Editor of the Journal of Organizational and Educational Leadership. As Executive Director at Triangle Leadership Academy, a Raleigh, NC-based public-private partnership, his organization won the James A. Goodman Award for “Organization With Greatest Impact in the Triangle.” Credited with authoring or co-authoring 26 monograph or journal articles, Bingham earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Doug Wren, Past-President Doug Wren is an Educational Measurement and Assessment Specialist with the Virginia Beach City Public Schools Department of Teaching and Learning. He also teaches research courses as an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Wren has over 25 years of experience as a classroom teacher and central office administrator in DeKalb County, Georgia and Virginia Beach. He completed his Ed.D. at the University of Georgia in 2000. His research interests, publications, and presentations focus primarily on topics related to educational measurement, including performance tasks, test anxiety, and assessment literacy for educators. |
| Dr. Corrie Block Corrie Rebecca Block, Ph.D., received her doctorate from the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching as well as a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Sociology. She is an Associate Professor of Policy Studies, Measurement and Evaluation in the School of Education at Bellarmine University. |
| Stephen Court Stephen Court currently serves as a senior research scientist at CRESST, as well as the president of the National Association of Assessment Directors (NAAD). Formerly, his work has involved the design, development, conduct, analysis, and reporting of large-scale and local assessment systems and program evaluations. His research interests, publications, and presentations have focused primarily on technical and policy issues involving comparability, instructional sensitivity, and assessment literacy, as well as the quality of local and large-scale assessment systems and the validity of the inferences drawn from their results. He earned his B.A. in creative writing and philosophy from Bennington College and his M.Ed. in Educational Research Methodology from Boston College before spending four years in the Educational Measurement and Statistics doctoral program at the University of Iowa. |
| Dr. Jacqueline S. Craven Jacqueline Craven is an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Delta State University. Her scholarly interests are multifarious and emanate from the sociology of education as well as the social contexts of education and mixed-research methodologies. She has conducted research with diverse ages and populations in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools throughout Mississippi for more than ten years on a variety of topics and is most interested in researchers’ fidelity to ethical practices and implementation. Dr. Craven regularly reviews articles and abstracts for Taylor & Francis' Action in Teacher Education, Delta State University's Delta Journal of Education, American Educational Research Association (AERA) divisions B, C, D, & G, the Mid-South Educational Research Association (MSERA), and Sage Publications. She has presented work at AERA, International Literacy Association (formerly LRA), CREATE, National Science Foundation Joint Annual Meeting (NSF-JAM), and MSERA among others, and now serves in multiple capacities as the DSU doctoral program coordinator. As such, she advises all doctoral candidates throughout the program, leads & evaluates doctoral curriculum in accordance with CAEP and other professional accrediting bodies, and serves on and chairs DSU doctoral dissertations on an ongoing basis. |
| Dr. Kevin Eakes Kevin Eakes is Director of the Office of Student Services and Credentialing for the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Kevin has taught in elementary and secondary public schools in North Carolina and South Carolina and has supervised clinical interns and taught graduate teacher education and human development courses at the College of Charleston. Kevin is a graduate of the Strategic Data Project at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, completed his doctoral degree at Auburn University, earned his master’s degree from the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, and received his undergraduate degree from Appalachian State University. Kevin’s research interests include socio-emotional learning and observation of teaching behaviors. |
| Dr. Paula Egelson, Joint Committee Representative Pauline (Paula) Egelson is the Director of Research at the Southern Regional Educational Board. Her research and evaluation interests include formative assessment, teacher evaluation, career tech, and principal leadership. She is the CREATE representative to the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation and is also a member of AEA. Egelson has an undergraduate degree in child development, a master's in reading education and a doctorate in educational leadership. Her research interests include formative evaluation, assessment, literacy, teacher evaluation, school improvement and at-risk youth. |
| Danielle Hahn, Administrative Assistant |
| Dr. Stacy Leggett Stacy Leggett is an associate professor in the Educational Administration, Leadership, and Research department at Western Kentucky University. She joined the WKU faculty in 2016. She teaches EDAD 642 School-Community Relations, EDAD 643 Securing and Developing Staff, EDAD 644 Creating Organizational Structures and Operations, EDAD 645 Preparing for the Principalship, EDAD 684 Instructional Leadership, and EDAD 594 Leading Auxiliary Services. Dr. Leggett has 23 years’ experience in P-12 education that includes serving as a high school math and social studies teacher, an instructional coach for the North Carolina Department of Public Administration for turnaround schools, and a North Carolina school and district administrator. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Mississippi College in Political Science and History, respectively (1991, 1997). She earned her M.S.A. in Educational Leadership from East Carolina University (2005) and her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from The George Washington University (2015). Her research interests include evaluation of teachers and principals, evaluation of program impacts on student outcomes, and leading change. She was the recipient of the Achilles-Harper-Swenson Emerging Research Award at the 2013 CREATE Conference. |
 | Daina Lieberman Daina S. Lieberman serves as a high school English teacher and International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme Coordinator for Fairfax County, VA public schools. Dr. Lieberman has taught in France, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia and was selected as both a PDK and ASCD Emerging Leader. She received her BA in English and French at Rutgers University and her MAT in Secondary English at Brown University. She earned her Ed.D. in Educational Administration and Policy Studies at The George Washington University in 2017. Her research focuses on teacher attrition and retention, teaching assignments, educational leadership, power, and decision-making. |
| Dr. Bronwyn MacFarlane |
| Dr. Jennifer McGee |
| Dr. Stefan Merchant Stefan Merchant's research focus is the assessment and reporting of learning skills and work habits. In addition to his published work on personality testing, teacher hiring, and teacher evaluation practices, he has authored or co-authored numerous program evaluations, technical reports, and analyses of large scale examinations in Canada and internationally. Before entering academia, Stefan worked as a teacher and administrator in Canada, Singapore and Indonesia. |
| Dr. Sean Owen Sean Owen is an Associate Research Professor for the Research and Curriculum Unit. Prior to joining the RCU, he was a research professor for Mississippi State University’s Center for Educational and Training Technology (CETT). Much of his CETT work included writing grants and curricula and administering and evaluating programs that integrated technology into core academic and career and technical areas in school districts statewide. Owen received a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences with an emphasis in chemistry and psychology from the University of Mississippi. He also holds a Master of Science in biological sciences and a doctorate in education with a minor in teacher technology education. His research focus and experience primarily is in the applied sciences and career and technical education. Frequently presenting at local, state, and national conferences, he is an active member of the ACTE and Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America. Additionally, he is a former president of the Mississippi Educational Computing Association. |
| Tara A. Wilson, Graduate Student Representative Tara A. Wilson is a doctoral candidate in Educational Administration and Policy Studies at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She has seven years of teaching experience and is currently a middle school reading teacher in Orlando, Florida. She earned her M.Ed. in Reading Education and her B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Central Florida. In 2015, she was honored as Teacher of the Year at Odyssey Middle School in Orlando, Florida. Her dissertation research is focused on the professional development of novice assistant principals. She is particularly interested in the methods used to prepare assistant principals for long-term careers within school leadership. |
CREATE is a sponsoring organization of the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (JCSEE). To learn more about JCSEE, please visit their website: http://www.jcsee.org/. Members of CREATE are also contributors to the American Evaluation Association, AEA 365 Blog. | CONTACT US |