George Smith

George Smith brings experience as a school district administrator to his work, which focuses on improving educational outcomes for students of color and students from low-income families.

Since joining Mathematica, Smith has worked on a range of projects across the education field. Currently, he is the task lead for the implementation analysis of the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods Grants program. In this role, he leads a team of analysts and programmers in examining how the initiative coordinates long-term support services in localized areas to improve educational outcomes of children in distressed neighborhoods. In his work for the Regional Educational Laboratory Central, which collaborates with school districts and local education agencies to support the use of evidence in education decision making, Smith provides technical assistance to a midwestern school district to monitor and understand teacher working conditions. He is also the deputy project director for a study assessing the impact of a program designed to increase participation and success for students of color in Advanced Placement courses.

Smith has also developed equitable evaluation guides that focus on including community members as part of research teams and collaborating with communities to disseminate findings. The guides are intended to help researchers and implementing organizations integrate equity-centered evaluation practices throughout the research cycle and are supported by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also leads assessment activities for the Equity Technical Assistance Center in collaboration with Mathematica, external experts, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This role allows him to work effectively with diverse partners to support collaboration and collective learning. Smith holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan, where his research focused on the impact of identity framing and situational cues on educational aspirations and attainments for students.