Ann Person

Ann Person works with partners in the public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors to generate and use evidence to enhance programs and systems in support of better education and career outcomes for individuals and communities. She has broad expertise in education, training, and transitions between school and work and applies a developmental and systemic lens to mixed-methods research.

Person has served as principal investigator for the evaluation of large-scale state- and community-based education system improvement efforts. The evaluation of Lumina Foundation’s Adult Promise grants provided formative feedback to the foundation and its state grantees as they designed and implemented initiatives to enroll, fund, and support adult learners in postsecondary education. For the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s P-16 Community Investment initiative, she led a team that helped community stakeholders, funders, practitioners, and researchers understand and support the development of coherent, high-functioning, place-based systems that span all education sectors, from early learning through postsecondary. Person has also served as project director and principal investigator for evaluations of grant programs for community colleges seeking to build and scale effective workforce programs under the U.S. Department of Labor’s Strengthening Community Colleges and Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant programs. Under these grants, community colleges have developed and implemented accelerated training programs for displaced workers, veterans, and other adult learners. Person also served as co-principal investigator of a related project funded by the Gates Foundation to support measurement and evaluation efforts among TAACCCT grantees.

Before joining Mathematica in 2007, Person held positions in K–12 and higher education at the Chicago Public Schools, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and the University of Wyoming. She also served as a senior program officer in postsecondary research and data at the Gates Foundation.

Person’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Social Science Research and Economics of Education Review, and she serves on the Journal of Higher Education's editorial review board. She holds a PhD in human development and social policy from Northwestern University.