Leadership

David Myers, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President
Director of the Education and Human Development Division
American Institutes for Research

David Myers, a nationally recognized education researcher, is Senior Vice President and the Director of the Education and Human Development Division at the American Institutes for Research.

Myers is an authority on the design, implementation, and analysis of experimental studies of education programs. He has played a leading role in some of the largest randomized control trials involving education conducted in the United States. His expertise includes studies using random assignment, matching procedures such as propensity scoring, and advanced statistical modeling. Prior to joining AIR he served as senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

He has directed policy analyses of elementary, secondary, postsecondary, and adult education issues, including such diverse topics as the effects of compensatory education programs and school vouchers on student achievement, the impact of high school achievement on college enrollment of black and white youth, and differences in learning trajectories of children as they progress through elementary school. He also led an impact study of adult literacy programs.

Myers, who publishes and presents widely on the use of experimental designs in education settings, has discussed elements of high-quality research at seminars sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Education Quality Institute, and Progressive Policy Institute, and has made similar presentations to the National Research Council.

He serves on the advisory panel of the What Works Clearinghouse, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is a member of IES’s standing review panel on reading and writing, and is on the board of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.

He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Washington State University. AIR, established in 1946 with headquarters in Washington, D.C., is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research on important social issues and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity.