Susan Baker Cohen, Senior Research Associate

Susan Baker Cohen is an educator with over 25 years of experience with education and evaluation. A graduate of Smith College and Lesley University, she has background and experience in literature, writing, education, and business. She has taught in grades K-8, undergraduate and graduate school, and has administered early childhood and elementary programs. She has expertise in formal and informal education, alternative assessment systems in higher education, organizational development, research and evaluation and systemic reform.

Susan Baker Cohen has been a member of PERG for over twenty years. In her role as Director from 1998–2008, she worked with all PERG associates and projects, and supervised, mentored, and conducted Independent Studies with Ph.D. students. She is also a Lesley University Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences faculty member. Sue is a member of the American Educational Research Association, the American Evaluation Association, the North Dakota Study Group, and the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. She is also a member of the GSASS Academic Leadership Group and co-chairs the GSASS Research Committee.

For the last several years, Susan Baker Cohen has been the principal Investigator of several large-scale mathematics and science systemic reform project evaluations, including the Massachusetts Statewide Systemic Initiative, the Statewide Implementation Program, the IMPACT project evaluation, and the Metro-Nashville Area Local Systemic Change project. She has also conducted evaluations of museum exhibits and programs and programs in the arts, adult and informal education, curriculum development and museum/school partnerships.

During her career in education, Susan Baker Cohen co-founded an elementary school which served to model developmental teaching and learning to the local public schools, helped develop the Collaborative Learning Assessment Packet,designed a set of workshops for teachers and administrators who are engaged in documenting their own programs, and created innovative evaluation tools for documenting and reporting data in large-scale programs. She has presented at national evaluation conferences and professional meetings and conducted workshops in collaborative learning at Lesley University and in other colleges and settings.