Leveraging AI
Please reserve the date and time on your calendar and register for AERA’s virtual PD session, “Leveraging AI: Productivity, Innovation, and Data Security”
Presented by Division H on Monday, February 9, 2026 (4-5 pm ET)
We are excited to announce that we will be offering a virtual PD session open to all AERA Division H members and friends! Please click on the linkregister for the webinar. https://tinyurl.com/AERA-Webinar-LeveragingAI
As part of the registration process, you will have an opportunity to share any questions/issues that you would like to see addressed during the session or as follow-up.
We look forward to you joining us!
Sincerely,
Josephine C. Seddon, Ph.D.
AERA Division H - Chair, Professional Development Committee
Moderator, Panelists, and Hosts
Arjay Romanowski, BS, MS, MLIS - STEM Librarian, Carlson Library, URochester
Edwin van Wijngaarden, PhD – Vice Provost for Academic Planning & Policy; Professor (Public Health Sciences, Environmental Medicine, Pediatrics, Dentistry, and Community Health & Prevention), University of Rochester
Mary Tabata, PhD- Adjunct Faculty & AI Course Developer, Eastern University, and Associate Faculty, American Public University System Boston College of Business
Adam Purtee, PhD - Associate Professor of Instruction (Computer Science), University of Rochester
Angela Clark-Louque, EdD - Professor (Educational Leadership and Technology), California State University, San Bernardino; Founder, Dr. Angela Clark Louque and Associates
Josephine C. Seddon, PhD - Chair, PD Committee for AERA Division H; Assistant Vice Provost for Educational Effectiveness and Educational Research, University of Rochester
E’rika Chambers, EdD - Co-Chair, PD Committee for AERA Division H; Director of Programs and Lead Researcher, Black Female Project
Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez, PhD - Co-Chair, PD Committee for AERA Division H; Professor (Leadership and Research Methods, Organizational Leadership), Eastern University
Moderator:
Mr. Arjay Romanowski is the liaison librarian to Computer Science and other related departments at UR's River Campus Libraries, and is a member of the library's AI literacy team. He has a special passion for adult education, and gives volunteer lectures for the local community. His research interests include the social control of technology, sustainability, AI ethics, and AI visual literacy.
Panelists:
Dr. Edwin van Wijngaarden has published over 180 peer-reviewed manuscripts primarily in the areas of environmental and occupational health, and in neurocognitive and neurobehavioral outcomes. He has significant collaborative research experience in clinical and population health research and was the founding director of the undergraduate public health program at the University of Rochester. He has served in various editorial roles for peer-reviewed journals, and in consulting and expert review roles at institutional, state and national levels, including study sections for federal research programs. Dr. van Wijngaarden is a lead member of the University of Rochester’s AI Council, created to foster collaboration across the University around AI initiatives and to lead adoption and governance of AI tools and technology, and chairs its AI education domain subcommittee.
Dr. Mary Tabata has over 15 years of experience in higher education and nonprofit management. She has a proven track record of leading and facilitating organizational change processes, strategic planning, and leadership development initiatives. As a leader in her field, Dr. Tabata served as a founding co-chair of two International Leadership Association member communities (Leadership & Coaching, 2024, and AI & Emerging Technologies, 2025). Dr. Tabata’s research interests and related publications include Generative AI applications in leadership and organizational development.
Dr. Adam Purtee’s recent interests have been pedagogical research in the context of CS education, as well as advances in large language models applied to reasoning and knowledge representation. My research interests were primarily directed at improving the scope and flexibility of symbolic reasoning methods applied in connection with natural language and co-authored a pattern transduction tool for working with parse trees, explored semi-supervised methods for training statistical parsers, and developed an inferentially coherent modal embedding for probabilistic knowledge in first order (and higher order) logics. He enjoys discussing topics including Natural language understanding, knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning, machine learning, numerical programming, sampling algorithms, virtual machines, computer networking, privacy, network and computer security.
Dr. Angela Clark-Louque is a Professor of Educational Leadership at California State University, San Bernardino. Her scholarship and professional practices center on creating pathways to policies that empower policymakers and school leaders to dismantle systems and white spatial imaginaries that uphold racial and gender inequities. As a faculty member, she facilitates learning through experiential exercises, case study development, and theory-to-practice modeling, while exploring how AI can enhance teaching and learning.
Hosts/Facilitators:
Dr. Josephine Carnevale Seddon provides leadership in program evaluation, student outcomes assessment, and guides the implementation of educational research projects. Josephine has over three decades of experience across the disciplines (K-20) as a teacher, professional developer, and assessment and evaluation specialist in the Province of Ontario (Canada) and in New York State. Her research interests include STEM education, course-based undergraduate research experiences, teacher/faculty development, and the impact of technology on education and society.
Dr. E’rika Chambers is particularly passionate about uplifting the voices of Black women, girls, and educators, encouraging active participation and utilizing historically responsive pedagogy. Her research focuses on transforming the culture of schools and workplaces into environments that foster care and support, enabling Black educators to thrive in their professions. Dr. Chambers is committed to transformational servant leadership, providing a platform for self-expression and offering insights to help individuals attain self-defined success in their careers and beyond.
Dr. Kathy-Ann C. Hernandez has led and conducted program evaluations both internationally and nationally, working with school districts and universities to assess program effectiveness, improve student outcomes, support strategic planning, and build internal evaluation capacity. Her career mission is to bridge the gap between scholarship and practice by applying research findings effectively to solve real-world problems.
Special note from Division H VP Virginia Snodgrass Rangel
As the Division H VP, I am excited to welcome all to join us in this PD session. We also hope you will consider joining AERA and Division H if you have not done so already. As a Division of AERA, we are committed to supporting and spotlighting high quality research related to program evaluation, accountability, and assessment. Our members hail from many areas, including school districts, state agencies, nonprofits, research and assessment companies, and universities, and from all over the world. We are confident you will find that Division H is a good home for you and your work, too.
December 8th, 2025 Webinar
RECORDING AVAILABLE: Division H Webinar on Communicating Research and Evaluation Findings with Diverse Audiences
Presented by Division H on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 (3-4 pm ET)
We are excited to announce that we will be offering a virtual PD session open to all AERA Division H members and friends!
Please click on the link below to register for the webinar. https://tinyurl.com/AERA-CollaborativeProgramEval
Sample questions or conversation starters could include:
· What are the key components of a collaborative evaluation?
· How are participants integrated into different aspects of the program evaluation process?
· What lessons have you learned from implementing collaborative evaluations?
· What might the future of collaborative evaluation look like?
· How might the role of evaluators be shifting especially in collaborative evaluation spaces?
· What conversations around data security and responsibilities of all parties might you want to include as you plan for a collaborative program evaluation and/or in the context of collaborative problem solving? (…more on this topic planned for our next webinar too!)
Andrea Barrett, Ed.D., Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Warner School of Education, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Colleen Paeplow, Ph.D., Senior Administrator for Program Accountability, Wake County Public School System’s Data, Research, and Accountability Department, Wake County, Cary, NC
David Osman, Ph.D., Research and Evaluation Director, Gibson Consulting Group, Austin, TX
Nahoko Kawakyu-O’Connor, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Program Evaluation, Center for Professional Development & Education Reform, and Educational Leadership, Warner School of Education, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Josephine Carnevale Seddon, Ph.D. (AERA Division H, Chair, Professional Development Committee), Director of Educational Effectiveness, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Marc Sager, Ph.D. (AERA Division H, Co-Chair, Professional Development Committee), Data Science Education K-12 (DSE K-12), Themes and Strands Committee Member
Simmons School of Education & Human Development, Southern Methodist University
Dr. Andrea Barrett’s teaching and practice interests include contemporary issues in higher education, student affairs administration, and leadership and management in post-secondary contexts. Her current research focuses on the intersection of student affairs and technology, with a particular emphasis on the impact of artificial intelligence on the work of student affairs professionals. Since joining the Warner faculty, she has worked with and advised several students on program evaluation projects and dissertations.
Dr. Colleen Paeplow has over 20 years of experience in program evaluation, 12 years as a university instructor, and 9 years serving on graduate committees. As the Senior Director for Program Accountability within the Wake County Public School System’s Data, Research, and Accountability Department, she collaborates with district program staff and university research partners to conduct evaluations and research studies. She serves as an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University teaching graduate courses on statistical analysis and data-based decision making. Working through universities and directly via her company, Dissertation Coaching Pros, she supports graduate students attending a variety of universities to finalize their degrees.
Dr. David Osman is a Director of Research and Evaluation at Gibson Consulting Group. Prior to Gibson, he was a classroom teacher and later Director of Research and Evaluation at Round Rock Independent School District (TX), where he worked side-by-side with district and school leaders to design and conduct internal program evaluations and applied educational research. At Gibson, he has led external evaluation studies with and for agencies such as Fulton County Schools (GA), Orange County Public Schools (FL), Kansas City Public Schools (MO), Rochester City School District (NY), Coppell Independent School District (TX), and the Regional Education
Laboratory Southwest (RELSW). He earned his PhD in Educational Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin. He is an evaluator because believes that research and evaluation can drive meaningful positive change in school districts and improve students' lives. As a native Austinite, he enjoys following Austin FC and traveling with his family.
Dr. Nahoko Kawakyu-O’Connor teaches research and evaluation theory and skills to educators and counselors at the graduate level, and partners with school districts, non-profit organizations, higher education institutions, and local and national foundations to support program evaluation efforts. She specializes in utilization-focused and participatory evaluation that is culturally responsive and explores structural and systemic factors that facilitate or hinder student, program, and organizational success.
Dr. Josephine C. Seddon provides leadership in program evaluation and student outcomes assessment at the university. She also guides the implementation and evaluation of educational research projects. Josephine has over three decades of experience across the disciplines (K-20) as a teacher, professional developer, and assessment and evaluation specialist in the Province of Ontario (Canada) and in New York State. Her research interests include STEM education, course-based undergraduate research experiences, teacher/faculty development, and the impact of technology on education and society.
Dr. Marc Sager is a Senior Research Specialist for the Dr. Elba and Domingo Garcia West Dallas STEM School, a research practice partnership with Southern Methodist University, Dallas ISD, Toyota, and the West Dallas Community. His research focuses on data science education, informal learning, and research-practice partnerships, aiming to bridge the gap between theory and practice. He has a background in food production and experience teaching secondary agricultural sciences in both formal and informal settings, his work uniquely intersects the realms of agriculture and education. He recently earned his Ph.D. in Education with a concentration in Learning Sciences from Southern Methodist University.