Ann Person

Ann Person has broad expertise in research on education, training, and the transition from school to work. She has held leadership roles on projects designed to improve program implementation and inform strategic development for philanthropic and public agency clients.

Person has served as principal investigator for the evaluation of large-scale state- and community-based education system improvement efforts. The evaluation of Lumina Foundation’s Adult Promise grants provided formative feedback to the foundation and its state grantees as they designed and implemented initiatives to enroll, fund, and support adult learners in postsecondary education. For the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s P-16 Community Investment initiative, she led a team that helped community stakeholders, funders, practitioners, and researchers understand and support the development of coherent, high-functioning, equity-centered place-based systems that span all education sectors, from early learning through postsecondary. Person also served as project director for an evaluation of a grant to a three-state consortium of community colleges under the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program. Under the grant, community colleges developed and implemented accelerated information technology training programs for displaced workers, veterans, and other adult learners. Person also served as co-principal investigator of a related project funded by the Gates Foundation to support measurement and evaluation efforts among TAACCCT grantees.

Before joining Mathematica in 2007, Person held positions in K–12 and higher education at the Chicago Public Schools, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and the University of Wyoming. She also served as a senior program officer in postsecondary research and data at the Gates Foundation.

Person’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science Research and Economics of Education Review, and she serves on the Journal of Higher Education's editorial review board. She holds a Ph.D. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University.