This is the first cohort to include representation from PK12, postsecondary, and workforce education agencies and organizations.

The Strategic Data Project (SDP), an initiative of the Center for Education Policy Research (CEPR) at Harvard University, welcomed its fourteenth cohort of SDP Fellows who will spend the next two years using evidence to evaluate and improve educational practices and policies.

These 44 fellows are drawn from across the country and work at every level of education. They include some of the nation’s largest school systems, like Atlanta and Orange County, Florida, which includes Orlando; state agencies such as the New Jersey and Maryland departments of education; higher education, including the State University of New York; educational organizations such as the United Negro College Fund; and representation from agencies along the P20W spectrum, including the Texas Workforce Commission.

Beginning with their first meeting on campus this month, these SDP Fellows will work with Harvard-affiliated faculty and field experts to elevate their statistical programming, advanced research techniques, and data management skills. Fellows will learn how to turn their findings into information that is accessible to non-experts, so that those findings can be put into action.

Throughout their fellowship, they will also collaborate with their organizations to work on real-world problems of practice by enhancing how data is used to benefit learners.

“This is our fourteenth cohort, and perhaps our most exciting yet,” said SDP Director Miriam Greenberg. “We are bringing together a group of experienced professionals who will help us, and each other, think about how we can use information to make our schools more responsive, more agile, and ultimately more equitable.”

During the next two years, fellows will meet in-person four times total, three of which alongside their supervisors from their organizations, and join in virtual training and learning modules, working groups, and faculty advisors as well as office hours and check-ins with the SDP team. Each fellow will also create a final strategic data project that documents their work with their organization.

“I want to use data to inform policy decisions for addressing educational and workforce inequities,” said Kathryn Zenoni, an incoming SDP Fellow from the New Mexico Higher Education Department. “SDP connects me to a wealth of knowledge of best practices in data analysis and people who also care immensely about the student experience behind the numbers.”

SDP has opened the application process for partner organizations and fellows for Cohort 15, which will run from fall 2023 to summer 2025. Education data leaders can apply to be placed as full-time employees within one of SDP’s partner organizations or they can be nominated by their current employer to enroll as a fellow.

SDP accepts applications from organizations hoping to hire a fellow or nominate an employee. Applications for both K12 and postsecondary organizations also open this month.

SDP is grateful to funders who sponsored partners across this cohort, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Overdeck Family Foundation.