INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

Elizabeth Tipton to Become a 2024 AERA Fellow

IPR statistician recognized for her exceptional contributions to education research

IPR statistician Elizabeth Tipton has been named one of 24 fellows for 2024 by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the nation’s largest interdisciplinary association devoted to scientific education research.

Nominated by their peers, the AERA Fellows are singled out for their “exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research.” She joins more than 760 AERA fellows in all, a who’s who of the U.S.’ top education researchers, including 10 Northwestern education researchers.

Megan Bang, professor of learning sciences in the School of Education and Social Policy and director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research, will also be a 2024 fellow.

“Their meaningful contributions to the education research field demonstrate the highest standards of academic excellence,” AERA Executive Director Felice Levine said.

Tipton, who was promoted to full professor this September, co-directs the Statistics for Evidence-Based Policy and Practice, or STEPP, Center, with IPR statistician and education researcher Larry Hedges. Her research covers the design and analysis of field experiments, improving the generalizability of large randomized trials, and modeling and effect sizes in meta-analyses.

Her path to statistical methodology and education research got its start when she spent three years living and working in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico for her first job out of college. It was here were she also realized that as a statistician she could use math for the social good.

Tipton would go on to receive her PhD in statistics at Northwestern in 2011, where she was a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Education Sciences. Following graduation, she headed to Columbia University’s Teachers College as an assistant professor, returning to Northwestern in 2018 as an associate professor. She has published in some of the field’s top journals, such as the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, Statistics in Medicine, and Nature. Her work has received funding from foundations and government agencies like the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.

She created and launched The Generalizer, a free online tool that is a “one-stop shop” for designing randomized studies in education—and is currently expanding it to other fields. She has worked across disciplinary silos, for example, collaborating with esteemed Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and others to develop the methodology for a groundbreaking experiment showing how a brief growth mindset intervention can raise high schoolers’ grades. And she co-authored a recent report for the Institute for Education Sciences that outlined five key priorities for funding education research over the next decade, including a greater focus on equity.

“We are so proud of Beth, and all that she has accomplished so far,” said IPR Director Andrew V. Papachristos, the John G. Searle Professor of Sociology. “She is a shining example of an IPR fellow who crosses disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of how to make our research not just better methodologically, but also more equitable.”

Tipton, Bang, and the other 2024 AERA fellows will be inducted into the program at its annual meeting in Philadelphia on April 12.

“The study of statistics means nothing unless it’s applied in the name of improving lives,” Tipton said. “As a statistician, there is no higher honor than being recognized by a field so intentional about the goal of making education better for those who need it the most.”

Read more about Elizabeth Tipton and her work.

Elizabeth Tipton is professor of statistics and data science and co-director of the Statistics for Evidence-Based Policy and Practice, or STEPP, Center.

Published: February 15, 2024.