Professional Biography
Matthew Riggan is a Co-Founder of the Workshop School, a project-based high school within the School District of Philadelphia’s Innovation Network. As Executive Director of the school’s nonprofit arm, Dr. Riggan directs research and development, designs and develops systems to support the school’s instructional model, and advocates locally and nationally for schools bringing project-based learning and authentic assessment to high-need communities.
Prior to launching the Workshop, Dr. Riggan was a Senior Researcher at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, where his work focused on a variety of topics including organizational development, formative assessment, distributed leadership, and high school reform. He earned his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Penn Graduate School of Education, where he continues to serve as an Adjunct Assistant Professor. He has taught qualitative and mixed methods research for over a decade, and is a co-author of Reason and Rigor: How Conceptual Frameworks Guide Research, now in its second edition.