Sepanik is a senior research associate in the K-12 Education policy area with two decades of experience in study design and mixed-methods research. She has a long history of leading all facets of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analyses and has provided technical assistance to educational program providers. She also has over a decade of experience in project management and has served as project director on several projects of varying sizes, scopes, and research designs. Much of her work has focused on the transition from high school into college and/or careers, especially for those students who are typically underserved in the postsecondary space.
She currently leads the Next Generation California Partnership Academies study, a long-term, rigorous evaluation of career academies, as well as an implementation and impact study of the scaling up of the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) across several states. She recently led a policy analysis of admissions requirements for the California State University System; as well as a rigorous long-term study of the Dana Center Math Pathways developmental education program; and the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory Evaluation of Oregon Early Indictor and Intervention Systems, a quasi-experimental study of Oregon’s statewide implementation of early warning indicator systems in support of high school dropout prevention.
She has been involved in several other evaluations during her tenure at MDRC, including an impact study of Diplomas Now, the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) Central Florida Collaborative evaluation, the Enhanced Reading Opportunities impact study, professional development impact studies for second-grade reading teachers and seventh-grade math teachers, the evaluation of the Formative Assessments of Student Thinking in Reading program in Boston Public Schools, the Getting Ready for Success college readiness pilot project in Tacoma, Washington, and an exploratory study of college readiness partnerships in Texas.
Before joining MDRC, Sepanik worked as a research intern at Chicago Public Schools, conducting research on student access to quality teaching and supporting efforts to create a school accountability system for the district. She has also taught middle school language arts and social studies. Sepanik holds a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) from the University of Chicago, Harris School for Public Policy.