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Mary Wagner

Director, Center for Education and Human Services

Mary Wagner, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Education and Human Services, supports the professional activities of more than 60 staff in conducting almost 20 projects for federal, state, and local agencies and for foundations and private clients. In her 28 years at SRI, Dr. Wagner's work has concentrated in two areas: longitudinal studies of the characteristics, experiences, and achievements of children and youth with disabilities, and evaluations of interventions and programs serving children and families, using experimental and quasi-experimental designs as well as quantitative and qualitative analysis approaches.

Dr. Wagner currently is principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), assessing the secondary school programs, experiences, and achievements of a nationally representative sample of students with disabilities. Over 10 years, the study is documenting the transition experiences and achievements of these youth in postsecondary education, employment, social adjustment, and independent living. She has co-directed the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS) for OSEP, addressing the experiences of a nationally representative sample of students receiving special education as they transition from elementary to middle and middle to high school.

Dr. Wagner also is principal investigator for the National Behavior Research Coordination Center (NBRCC). NBRCC is working closely with four university-based behavior research centers that are conducting randomized trials of interventions for children in first through third grades who have severe behavior problems. Dr. Wagner also is principal investigator for the OSEP-funded Model Demonstration Coordination Center, which is working with multiple cohorts of grantees to assess the efficacy of their models and determine the contextual factors that support greater implementation fidelity.

Dr. Wagner's further experience with intervention research includes serving as principal investigator for the National Effectiveness of First Step to Success, a randomized controlled trial of an intervention to address the needs of young students with serious behavior challenges at school. Dr. Wagner's additional experience with randomized trials includes a multisite evaluation of the impacts of a home visiting program for low-income families with young children, an evaluation of a home visiting program serving primarily Latina mothers of young children, a multisite evaluation of a teen parenting intervention, and a multisite evaluation of a nutrition education program for low-income mothers.

She also was director of the statewide evaluation of California's Healthy Start School-linked Services Initiative, which assessed the services and outcomes of 99 local collaboratives that were linking health and human services to schools. An important element of this project identified the dimensions of services and collaboratives that were associated with more positive outcomes for children and families.

Dr. Wagner has made many presentations at professional meetings and has provided testimony before state and federal legislative and policymaking groups. She holds a Ph.D. degree in political science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Wagner can be contacted at cehs@sri.com.