Shari Golan, PhD, is president of SRI Education and a vice president of SRI International. Golan joined SRI in 1992 and has been a research center director since 2012. Golan has more than 25 years’ experience leading, conducting, and managing quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation projects in large school districts and other multisite contexts for federal, state, foundation, and commercial clients.

Golan is expert in both process and outcome evaluation and technical assistance. Her expertise includes working with policymakers, funders, and program leaders to identify desired outcomes, strategies to achieve them, and ways to collect and use high-quality data to monitor progress. She has researched coordinated services and systems for children, youth, and families to improve social, educational, and economic outcomes for vulnerable populations; family engagement; and early childhood education quality and outcomes for traditionally underserved children and youth. She also has disseminated findings in multiple formats for diverse audiences.

Golan has experience leading large projects, including a 5-year, $37 million contract to conduct a statewide comprehensive evaluation of the First 5 California program that collected child, family, teacher, and program data, as well as administrative data, across all 58 counties to assess outcomes in family functioning, child health and well-being, and children’s learning and school readiness. She has also led large-scale evaluations and technical assistance projects focused on early childhood in Florida, Minnesota, Virginia, and Washington.

Golan earned her PhD in education from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Key projects

• Virginia Early Childhood Foundation’s Early Childhood Systems Building Strategy Map and Indicators
• Evaluation of the Virginia Preschool Initiative-Plus Preschool Development Grant
• Evaluation of The McKnight Foundation’s Pathway Schools Initiative
• Case Studies of the Implementation and Use of Kindergarten Entry Assessments
• The Florida Teacher Master Initiative Evaluation: Final Report