Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta (Liz) is director, educational transformation, at Ithaka S+R, where she focuses on increasing college access and success for low-income students and evaluating the implementation of evidence-based strategies to improve student learning outcomes.

Liz earned a PhD in economics and education at Columbia University where her dissertation focused on the impacts of federal accountability policy on school restructuring and closure. Liz is also the co-founder and Secretary of the Board of Code Nation, a non-profit that brings coding courses and work-based learning programs to thousands of students who attend under-resourced high schools in NYC, the Bay Area, and Chicago. Previously, Liz served as the deputy chief strategic officer in the Division of Talent, Labor and Innovation at the New York City Department of Education, where she oversaw policy, communications, and implementation of NYC’s teacher evaluation and development system for more than 75,000 teachers and 1.1 million students. Liz also has experience consulting with various educational organizations on data strategy and analysis, and teacher and school evaluation design and implementation.

Liz began her professional career teaching high school math in Philadelphia’s public schools. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Georgia, a master’s degree in urban education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate in economics and education from Columbia University.