Mary Maxwell West, Senior Research Associate, received her doctorate in 1981 through an interdisciplinary research training program at Harvard University with a faculty of anthropologists, psychologists, and educators. The faculty believed that current U.S. policy on children and families suffered from a narrow view of the outcomes and influences on child development due to lack of cultural diversity in the research base. Mary carried out a two-year, multi-method study of child cognitive development in the outer Fiji Islands.
Mary has since served as a co-principal investigator, researcher, or evaluator on ten projects in education reform that have involved collaborations among educators and researchers and have required intensive qualitative and quantitative field data. She has taught graduate courses in research methods at the Harvard School of Education and UMass/Boston, co-edited two books, and co-authored numerous articles. The projects include research or evaluation in Boston, Cambridge, and other urban and rural school systems, together with researchers at Lesley University, Harvard University's Educational Technology Center, Boston College's Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy, UMass/Boston, Education Development Center, TERC, and the National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education.
Mary came to PERG in 1993 to assist in an evaluation of mathematics education reform efforts in Mississippi being developed by former civil rights organizers Bob Moses and David Dennis called the "Algebra Project." The Algebra Project uses a broad approach, including community development and youth leadership development, in addition to curriculum development and teacher professional development. The evaluation work has expanded to include Algebra Project sites in several other states.
In her spare time, Mary enjoys discussing current events in education with friends and colleagues, traveling, gardening, and listening to and making music.