2026 Innovation Day Moderators & Researchers

Andrea McChristian is the National Policy Director for Just Equations. Prior to joining Just Equations, McChristian served as Policy Research Director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Earlier, McChristian served as the Law and Policy Director for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, as a litigation associate with a New York law firm, and as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. McChristian has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Yale University, a master’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a law degree from Columbia Law School. McChristian also served as a Head Start teacher for two years in the Las Vegas Valley as a member of Teach for America. 

Julia Kaufman is director of the Education and Employment Program at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. She also codirects the RAND American Educator Panels. Her research focuses on how states and school systems can support high-quality instruction and student learning, as well as methods for measuring educator perceptions and instruction. She has led studies in a range of areas from the implementation of K–12 state standards and curriculum materials to factors that support adult and child civic literacy, identity, and engagement and has done considerable work to develop innovative measures of instructional practice, including measures of student-centered learning and teachers' mathematics instruction. Kaufman holds a Ph.D. in international education from New York University and an M.A. in teaching from the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Corey Gheesling is the Associate Vice President at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. In this role, Dr. Gheesling is focused on building SHEEO’s workforce development portfolio to complement and engage SHEEO members in their continued efforts to meet economic and workforce demands. Before joining SHEEO, Dr. Gheesling served as Associate Director for Workforce Development at the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, where he led statewide efforts to align academic programs with economic and workforce development priorities, supported strategic outreach around South Carolina’s Public Agenda for Higher Education—Ascend 60×30—and advanced frameworks for transfer efficiency and credit mobility. Dr. Gheesling’s previous roles include leading the academic affairs division at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, instructional designer and technologist at Furman University, teaching social studies, and coaching. He is a 2025 graduate of the Furman University Riley Institute Diversity Leaders Initiative Fellowship and a former participant in LEAD Tennessee, the state’s executive leadership development program. Dr. Gheesling holds a doctorate in higher education leadership and policy from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, a master’s degree in youth development leadership from Clemson University, and a bachelor’s degree in history and sociology with secondary educator certification from Furman University.

Dr. Rajeev Darolia is the Wendell H. Ford Professor of Public Policy and a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He previously served as Chief Economist and a Senior Advisor at the US Department of Education. He is also the Associate Director of the UK Center for Poverty Research, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, and a Senior Fellow at the PEER Center. He serves as a Co-Editor for the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Dr. Darolia's research interests include questions about how public policy affects economic mobility and financial security, especially related to education policy. He routinely advises nonprofit organizations and federal, state, and local policymakers on regulatory, research, and policy topics.

Courtney Bell serves as Vice President of Research and Innovation at TN SCORE (State Collaborative on Reforming Education), where she leads the organization’s strategic practice portfolio—piloting research-based approaches to improve student outcomes and supporting the spread and scale of effective practices across Tennessee. She also oversees SCORE’s research and data analysis efforts across the K–12 to workforce continuum. Prior to joining SCORE in 2016, Courtney was Deputy Director of Evaluation at the Tennessee Department of Education, supporting high-quality implementation of teacher evaluation. A graduate of Tennessee public schools, she earned bachelor’s degrees in political science and Spanish from the University of Tennessee, taught fifth grade in Charlotte through Teach For America, and holds a master’s in public administration and policy from the University of Georgia.

Dr. Dan Goldhaber is Director of the Center for Education Data & Research and a Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington. He also directs the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) and serves as a Vice President at the American Institutes of Research (AIR). Dan’s research focuses on educational productivity and K–12 reform, with particular emphasis on the policies that shape the teacher workforce—its composition, distribution, and quality—and how students’ K–12 experiences connect to postsecondary outcomes. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Vermont and an MS and PhD in Labor Economics from Cornell University.