Melissa Clark

Melissa Clark is a leading expert in the design and implementation of rigorous education evaluations.

Clark's recent research has focused on how best to train and support teachers and school leaders. She has served as project director or principal investigator on seven large-scale education evaluations, including evaluations of Teach For America and the Teaching Fellows programs, teacher residency programs, video-based coaching and feedback for teachers, departmentalized instruction, principal professional development, and strategies to improve the performance of principal supervisors and the principals they oversee. She has designed and conducted multiple large-scale studies using random assignment and quasi-experimental designs.

As director of education research, Dr. Clark oversaw and guided project teams for Mathematica’s portfolio of contracts for the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). She has taught courses on evaluation design and methods to master’s and doctoral students at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. She has published in the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Economics of Education Review, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and the Journal of Population Economics. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.