Carol Weiss: Biographical Sketch

Carol Weiss is Professor of Education Emerita at Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches courses on evaluation, organizational decision-making, and research methods. Her ongoing research deals with educational policymaking, the uses of research in policymaking, and the influence of ideology, interests, information, and institutional rules and structures. She has written 11 books and about 100 articles and book chapters dealing with evaluation, uses of research in policymaking, cross-national comparisons of research influence, and media reporting of research. Her recent work includes Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies, What to Do until the Random Assigner Comes, and The Interface between Evaluation and Public Policy, which was published internationally. She has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, a senior fellow at the U.S. Department of Education, and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Weiss has previously served on eight NRC committees including the committee that produced the report Scientific Research in Education. She received a B.A. in Government from Cornell, an M.A. in Government from Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University.