Allan Cohen
Director of the Georgia Center for Assessment; Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Education and Human Development; Professor of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology; Omer Clyde and Elizabeth Parr Aderhold Professor in Research Methodology

Co-Principal Investigator for PEG’s evaluation of Forsyth County Schools’ U. S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation grant

Dr. Cohen is an expert in educational measurement, item response theory, test development, and applied statistics. His research focuses on examining methodological issues in educational measurement primarily with respect to applications in test development, including problems dealing with the construction and maintenance of achievement tests; equating, detection of item bias, and estimation of item parameters under item response theory; and standards setting.

In the spring of 2011, a team of University of Georgia education researchers including Dr. Cohen received the 2011 Award for an Outstanding Example of an Application of Educational Measurement Technology to a Specific Problem from the National Council on Measurement in Education for their development of a new statistical method for measuring the growth of students’ problem-solving skills in mathematics. This new method enables researchers to simultaneously measure both the different ways that students can reason about individual questions on a mathematics test and their overall growth in mathematics ability.

Dr. Cohen is the Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Education and Human Development. As a center within this Institute, PEG has the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Cohen and other faculty and research specialists in the other centers of the Institute—the Learning and Performance Support Laboratory, the Georgia Center for Assessment, E. Paul Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, and the Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics program.

Noel Gregg
Former Associate Dean for Research, College of Education, Distinguished Research Professor

Co-Principal Investigator for PEG’s internal evaluation of the Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance (GSAA) funded by the National Science Foundation

Co-Principal Investigator for PEG’s evaluation of Forsyth County Schools’ U. S. Department of Education Investing in Innovation grant

Dr. Gregg recently retired as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Education. She is also the former Director of the UGA Regents’ Center for Learning Disorders and Head of Research for the Georgia Alternative Media Access Center, and the former interim Director of PEG. Her areas of specialization include adolescents and adults with learning disabilities and AD/HD, accommodations, alternative media, assessment, written language disorders, and measurement validity.

Sheneka Williams
Assistant Professor, Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy

Dr. Williams’ areas of expertise are educational policy and leadership, including student assignment policies, policies concerning equity and access in public schools, the impact of school leadership on student achievement, and policies and issues of race, gender, and social class within the school/community context. Before coming to the University of Georgia, she was a research and evaluation specialist with Edvantia, Inc.

As a 2009 recipient of the University of Georgia’s Sarah H. Moss Fellowship Award, Dr. Williams spent five weeks during the summer working at The Century Foundation (TCF) in Washington, D.C. Her current research includes a study that examines issues of political will and micro-politics surrounding socio-economic student assignment policies in the San Francisco Unified School District, Brandywine (Delaware) School District, Champaign (Illinois) Unit Four School District, and Jefferson County School District (Kentucky).

Dr. Williams also serves as the Principal Investigator leading PEG’s evaluation of Georgia’s Supplemental Educational Services program.

Jack Parish
Lecturer, Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy

Jack Parish is a former Superintendent of Henry County Schools. For his service to Henry County Schools, he was commended by the Georgia House of Representatives in 2008 for his devotion and tireless commitment to both students and educators and to improving the quality of education in Henry County and in the State of Georgia.

As a lecturer in University of Georgia’s Department of Lifelong Education, Administration, and Policy, Mr. Parish shares his knowledge and expertise to foster excellence in current and future education leaders. On June 1, 2011, he became the Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders.