About Dr. Phoebe Cottingham

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As Commissioner, Cottingham directs the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), one of four centers at IES. Cottingham promotes a strategy of innovation in the application of evaluation methods across many kinds of education initiatives. She believes that by expanding the use of sound evaluation methods and clear translations of the findings, policymakers and school leaders will have the evidence they need to select more effective practices and policies. Key programs within NCEE include evaluations of federal education programs, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the Regional Educational Laboratories.

Prior to her IES appointment, Cottingham served as senior program officer for domestic public policy at the Smith Richardson Foundation in Westport, CT from 1996-2003. During her seven years at the Foundation, she helped develop innovative projects concerned with school reform and early childhood education as well as other policy areas. Cottingham developed a portfolio of randomized controlled trials led by innovative evaluators who examined the potential effects of many different types of interventions, including voluntary tutoring, after-school and summer programs, class size reduction, home visitation interventions, parent-child literacy interventions, child caregiver continuity, school choice, private and public voucher programs, housing vouchers, restorative justice, divorce mediation, and teenage pregnancy prevention.

Cottingham was associate director of the Equal Opportunity Program at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, from 1979 to 1996. Prior to that, she held teaching and research positions in a number of academic institutions prior to entering the field of philanthropy, including UCLA, University of California-Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, and Barnard College. Cottingham received her undergraduate degree in political science from the Pennsylvania State University, a master's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.