Michelle Maier is a developmental psychologist and early childhood researcher with more than a decade of experience leading large-scale, multi-site studies designed to strengthen early care and education systems for children and families. Known for bringing both methodological rigor and a collaborative, practical lens to her work, Dr. Maier has served as a principal investigator and project director on federally and philanthropically funded initiatives focused on improving child outcomes, supporting the early care and education workforce, and helping programs use evidence-based practices in real-world settings. Her research spans curriculum, assessment, professional development, and workforce development, with a particular focus on understanding how early childhood interventions can be implemented effectively and at scale.
Her recent work includes leading several studies examining the implementation and impact of preschool curricula paired with intensive professional development, including Scaling High-Quality Pre-K in DC, Variations in Implementation of Quality Interventions, and ExCEL Quality. She has also contributed to the development, validation, and use of novel child assessments to support teaching, learning, and continuous quality improvement in early childhood settings through Measures for Early Success, an initiative focused on improving the quality, usability, and implementation of early childhood assessment tools. In addition, Dr. Maier has played a key leadership role on Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce, a project designed to inform strategies for recruiting, supporting, and retaining a qualified, healthy, and stable early care and education workforce. Across her portfolio, she works closely with educators, program leaders, policymakers, and funders to generate actionable evidence that strengthens early childhood practice and policy.
Cassandra Brentley is Director of Operations at Early Excellence Project, a Khan Academy Kids partner organization piloting the Khan Academy Early Childhood Assessments this year. A scholar-practitioner, she has built her career on connecting education research to practice, especially for students of color and other historically marginalized learners. Her research interests include the opportunity gap and the digital divide. Continuous improvement is at the core of her work.
She has presented on it at national and regional conferences, including poster sessions at the Carnegie Summit on Improvement in Education in 2023 and 2024. Dr. Brentley has also collaborated on research-practice partnerships with the University of Pittsburgh and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Her published research covers high-impact tutoring, social justice math, and AI-supported personalized learning. One example is a 2022 study for the Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) conference on how combining human and AI personalization can advance educational equity. In 2025, she presented on AI and early literacy development at the Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference. She holds a doctorate in Urban Education from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master of Arts in Education in Adult Learning and Training from Argosy University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Integrated Marketing Communications from Duquesne University.
Isabel Andrade is a Principal Product Manager at Khan Academy Kids, a free learning app for children ages 2–8 that reaches more than 2 million learners each month. She leads the development of a playful pre-K assessment platform that gives families and educators timely information on children’s progress in math, literacy, and executive function, in both English and Spanish. The platform has been piloted with over 1,200 students in roughly 70 classrooms across five states, and will serve more than 16,000 pre-K students in the 2026–27 school year.
Isabel began her career as a third-grade teacher at Yachay Wasi, a public elementary school serving working-class Indigenous migrant families in her hometown of Quito, Ecuador. That classroom experience still shapes her work: she brings a teacher’s eye to how assessment data can be practical and actionable for educators.
Isabel was named to the Forbes “30 Under 30 in Education” list. She holds an MBA and a Master’s in Education from Stanford University, where she received the Miller Social Change Leadership Award, and a BA in Philosophy from Williams College, where she was awarded the Turner Citizenship Prize.
