Megan Silander leads national initiatives and studies that generate new insights into effective pre-K–12 education policies and programs. An experienced research and evaluation leader, she brings extensive expertise in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research; descriptive, experimental, and quasi-experimental methods; and use of large-scale administrative and telemetry data. Her current research focuses on media, technology, and learning. She is a widely published author and presents her findings at national conferences and forums.

Megan leads the Center for Advancing Elementary Science through Assessment, Research, and Technology at EDC and co-leads EDC’s Changing Adolescents’ Reading Trajectories study. Recently, she served as the principal investigator of a collaborative research initiative funded by The LEGO Foundation. From this work, she co-authored The Edtech Design Toolkit: A Human-Centered, Collaborative Approach to Sustainable Innovation, Lessons Learned from the Tech & Play Initiative; three briefs about the work in Kenya, Rwanda, and Brazil; a cross-site lessons learned report; and a blog post.

Previously at EDC, Megan co-led National Science Foundation-funded initiatives and conducted research on Ready To Learn, a U.S. Department of Education-supported initiative that produced decades of findings on how media can foster family engagement in learning and improve the school readiness of preschool children.

Megan holds a PhD in Education Policy from Columbia University, an EdM in International Education Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a BA in Linguistics from Pomona College.