Vanessa Coleman, Ed.D.

Vanessa Coleman, Ed.D., co-director of SRI’s Center for Education Research and Innovation, is a seasoned qualitative researcher, a systems capacity-building designer and provider, and a strategic advisor for organizational change management. Coleman designs equity-focused frameworks to inform organizational structures, systems, processes, and practices. At SRI, Coleman leads the partnership focused on implementing the Department of Education’s Region 1 Equity Assistance Center. Coleman designs educational resources in this role and provides technical assistance to states, districts, schools, and partnering organizations to improve educational experiences. She also co-leads efforts to integrate equity drivers into organizational structures for the Dasy Center, a national technical assistance center supporting states’ IDEA early intervention and early childhood special education programs in building high-quality data systems. Coleman is also a principal investigator for Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality, the American Voices Project (AVP). The AVP is a national, qualitative longitudinal household survey exploring diverse experiences throughout the United States.