Martha Bleeker

Martha Bleeker has expertise in designing and conducting impact evaluations of education and school-based programs for government agencies and foundations, using both experimental and quasi-experimental methods. She has studied the impact of interventions on children’s and adolescents’ academic outcomes, social-emotional well-being, physical activity, health-related outcomes, and career plans.

Since joining Mathematica in 2005, Bleeker has worked on the design, data collection, analysis, and dissemination of findings for several studies. She has served as the deputy project director and survey director on an evaluation of the Harlem Children's Zone’s Healthy Harlem obesity prevention initiative and an evaluation of the Playworks program, which places full-time coaches in schools to provide opportunities for organized play during recess and throughout the school day. She also served as the survey director for the evaluation of the Roads to Success Program, a college- and career-readiness program for students at high-poverty rural middle and high schools.

Bleeker has conducted systematic reviews for the What Works Clearinghouse since 2008. She serves as the product lead for all What Works Clearinghouse topic areas that evaluate research on education interventions. She is also the lead methodologist for the topic areas focused on interventions for students with disabilities, providing group design and single-case design methodological support to reviewers, reconciling study reviews, assigning effectiveness ratings to interventions, and writing intervention reports. She has developed training materials and guidance documents for single-case design reviewers and leads single-case design training and certification.

Before coming to Mathematica, Bleeker worked for many years on projects aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In 2015, she served on the project planning committee for a conference focused on girls’ math identity and participation in STEM, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.

In addition to her project work, Bleeker supervises Mathematica’s survey research associates. She holds a Ph.D. in human development and family studies with a minor in statistics from Pennsylvania State University.