About Us

Michael Strong holds a Ph.D. in Educational Research from UC Berkeley. He currently works part-time at Texas Tech University in the College of Education as Adjunct Professor and Visiting Research Scientist. Previously he was a senior researcher at the Center for Research in the Interest of Underserved Students (CERIUS) at UC Santa Cruz, and is the former Director of Research at the UC Santa Cruz New Teacher Center and the UC San Francisco Center on Deafness. His most recent book is The Highly Qualified Teacher: What is Teacher Quality and How Do We Measure It?

John Gargani holds a Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley, a Masters in Statistics and Operations Research from New York University’s Stern School of Business, and a Masters of Business Administration from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. He is President of Gargani + Company, Inc., a consulting firm that provides program design and evaluation services to social and educational programs. For the past 22 years, he and his colleagues have worked with clients to imagine, implement, test, and improve a wide variety of programs. His areas of expertise are the integration of service delivery, evaluation, and technology; the development of sophisticated assessments and surveys; and the design and management of rigorous experimental trials of program effectiveness. He was the 2016 President of the American Evaluation Association.