Leslie Nabors Oláh is a senior research scientist in the K-12 Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Research center at ETS. Her research focuses on children’s development of mathematical understanding and on teacher use of assessments in mathematics. From 2005-2010, she was a research assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and from 2010 to 2012, she served as a Bill and Melinda Gates strategic data fellow at the School District of Philadelphia Offices of Accountability and Charter Schools. In this capacity, she helped to evaluate the equity of the charter-school enrollment process and incorporate multiple measures into the charter-school renewal process. At ETS, she contributed to the development of the NOTE-CKT program (in mathematics) and led work for the Cognitively Based Assessments of, for, and as Learning (CBAL®) initiative. She currently develops the domain, student, and evidence models for Winsight® Testlets in mathematics and is research lead for the Winsight testlet assessments. She leads a study of the NAEP Survey Assessments Innovations Lab (SAIL) investigating the relationship between opportunities to learn and effective student calculator use on the 2019 Grade 8 NAEP Math assessment.
She has an M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an Ed.M. in methodology and an Ed.D. from Harvard University. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NICHD), the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. Nabors Oláh has served on advisory boards for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Mathematica Policy Research. From 1999-2000, she was co-chair of the editorial board of the Harvard Educational Review. She teaches for the mid-career doctorate in educational leadership and Med Ed master’s programs at Penn, where she holds the title adjunct associate professor.