June 2018

Two senior positions have been filled at the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Science Foundation.

Mark Schneider, director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), announced that Matthew Soldner will be the new commissioner for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. NCEE conducts large-scale evaluations of education programs supported by federal funds, provides technical assistance, and supports the development and use of research and evaluation throughout the United States.

Soldner is returning to IES from the American Institutes for Research (AIR), where he was a principal researcher working on postsecondary education, including transitions from high school or the workforce to college, undergraduate persistence and attainment outcomes, college financing and federal student aid programs, early labor market outcomes, and career and technical education at the postsecondary level.

Prior to his position at AIR, Soldner was a senior technical advisor at the National Center for Education Statistics. He will begin his role as NCEE Commissioner on July 2.

Emilda Rivers became the new division director of the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) at NSF on June 24. NCSES is the federal statistical agency providing data and statistics on the scientific and engineering enterprise. It is one of 13 primary statistical agencies in the U.S. federal system.

Rivers served as acting division director of NCSES after the retirement of prior director John Gawalt in April. Her previous roles at NCSES include deputy division director, program director for the Human Resources Statistics Program, and mathematical statistician. Rivers also served as a branch chief and mathematical statistician at the Census Bureau and as a survey statistician for the Department of Energy.