Executive Director
kshaw@researchforaction.org
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Kate Shaw became Executive Director of Research for Action in December 2009. She comes to this position after having served for three years as Deputy Secretary of Postsecondary and Higher Education in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. As Deputy, Dr. Shaw was primarily responsible for developing and implementing policy designed to increase the quality and accessibility of postsecondary education throughout the state. She has also overseen the creation and implementation of a statewide college transfer system; major reforms in teacher preparation and the preparation and professional development of educational leaders; the expansion of Pennsylvania’s longitudinal data system into the postsecondary arena; increasing the prominence and effectiveness of the state’s community colleges; and a major restructuring of the state’s college retention program to focus on concrete educational outcomes.
Prior to her work at PDE, Dr. Shaw was a faculty member at Temple University for ten years in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, and also served as Chair of that Department. Her scholarship has focused on issues of access and equity in higher education with a particular emphasis on policy issues, and has been supported by a number of foundations including Russell Sage, Spencer, Annie E. Casey, Ford, Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Lumina Foundation. Her book Putting Poor People to Work: How the Work-First Idea Eroded College Access for the Poor was published in 2006 by the Russell Sage Foundation Press, and was selected as a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award of the American Sociological Association. Her co-edited volume (with Donald Heller) entitled State Postsecondary Education Research: New Methods to Inform Policy and Practice was published in 2007. Dr. Shaw has also held positions at the Harvard Family Research Project and the Pew Charitable Trusts, and has served as a Senior Research Associate for the Community College Research Center at Columbia University.
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