Thomas D. Cook, Sociology, Psychology, and Education and
Social Policy

In addition to his work on Comer Schools and whole-school reform, Cook has studied and long advocated randomized and quasi-experiments in educational policy research as a means to achieve more meaningful research results. Cook is the Joan and Sarepta Harrison Chair in Ethics and Justice, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Margaret Mead Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Larry V. Hedges, Statistics and Education and Social Policy
Hedges’ research straddles many fields—in particular those of soci-ology, psychology, and educational policy. He is best known for his work to develop statistical methods for meta-analysis in the social, medi-cal, and biological sciences. He is Board of Trustees Professor of Statistics and Social Policy and a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He is convener of the Campbell Collaboration’s statistics group, which is creating an online best-practices database.

Charles F. Manski, Economics
Manski’s research spans econo-metrics, judgment and decision making, and social policy analysis. He is currently exploring and par-tially resolving pervasive problems of identification and statistical inference that arise when studying treatment response and making treatment choices. He is Board of Trustees Professor in Economics and a fellow of the Econometric Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Bruce D. Spencer, Statistics
Spencer is a statistician whose interests span the disciplines of statistics and public policy with special focus on the design and evaluation of large-scale statistical data programs. He has studied the accuracy of the decennial census and undercount corrections, government population forecasts, and jury verdicts in criminal trials. He is a recipient of the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award from the American Educational Research Association and an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Christopher R. Taber, Economics
Taber’s research focuses on the development and implementation of econometric models of skill formation including schooling, on-the-job training, and other forms of human capital investment. His recent research spans studies of Catholic schooling, wage growth among low-wage workers, and general equilibrium models of the labor market. He is associate editor at three journals, including the Journal of Applied Econometrics, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.