Biography
Dr. Leslie Nabors Oláh is an education researcher, methodologist, and national authority on assessment and educational equity with over 20 years of experience leveraging scientific knowledge to meet the needs of practitioners, policymakers, and stakeholders. She recently served as scientific director at Assessment for Good/AERDF, where she set and implemented research strategy for a suite of learner-centered, asset-based formative assessment tools administered in over 30 educational organizations across 14 U.S. states. This work included leading longitudinal data collection with over 15,000 students and operationalizing key constructs such as “belonging,” “engagement,” and “agency” for diverse educational audiences.
Previously, Dr. Nabors Oláh spent a decade as a senior managing research scientist at Educational Testing Service, making substantial contributions to programs including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Praxis Content Knowledge for Teaching series, and ETS's first K–12 summative and interim assessment system. She also served as a Bill and Melinda Gates Strategic Data Fellow in the School District of Philadelphia, where her analysis of equitable access to school choice identified systemic barriers and directly led to city-wide policy reforms in 2013.
Dr. Nabors Oláh is an adjunct associate professor and evidence-based leadership strand leader in the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership at Penn GSE, where she has developed an 11-course curriculum, taught research methods and quantitative analysis, and chaired doctoral dissertations. Her students lead state education departments, school districts, charter-management organizations, schools, and other educational entities both in the U.S. and abroad.
An exceptional mentor and communicator, she has presented at major conferences including SCRD, AERA, and NCME, published in leading peer-reviewed journals, and secured funding and/or led projects funded by the NSF, NIH, IES, and Spencer Foundation. She holds an Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.