Laura Hamilton

Laura Hamilton is associate vice president of research centers at ETS, leading a portfolio of research on assessment and learning related to K-12 and postsecondary education and workforce development. She also serves as the Eignor Executive Editor for ETS. Prior to joining ETS, she served as distinguished chair in learning and assessment at the RAND Corporation, directed the RAND Center for Social and Emotional Learning Research, and codirected the American Educator Panels. Much of her research has focused on promoting effective use of assessment data to support social, emotional, and academic learning and on providing evidence-based guidance to local and state education leaders. She has also explored how civic education can contribute to a more equitable and informed society. Her work has been funded by federal agencies, philanthropic foundations, and private donors and has been published in a wide variety of venues including academic journals and policy reports. She’s served on numerous committees and panels including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Developing Indicators of Education Equity, the steering committee for the CASEL Assessment Work Group, and the technical advisory committees for several state assessment programs. She’s an associate editor of Educational Researcher and a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. In 2020, she received the Joseph A. Zins Award for Social and Emotional Learning Action Research. She holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology and an M.S. in statistics from Stanford University.