Susan M. GatesDirector, Office of Research Quality Assurance; Senior Economist; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School
Susan M. Gates is a senior economist at RAND whose research covers a wide range of topics including school leadership, talent management, organizational effectiveness, and entrepreneurship. Susan’s recent school leadership work examines what principal preparation programs, school districts, and states are doing to improve school leadership. She co-led two multi-year studies for The Wallace Foundation focused on their Principal Pipeline Initiative (PPI) and University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). PPI was an effort to enhance the quality of school leadership in six large urban districts through improvements to pre-service preparation, principal standards, recruitment and selection, and early career support. UPPI supported university-based principal preparation program collaboration with district and state partners to improve program quality and principal effectiveness. Susan also led a study based on a 2019 national survey of school district leaders that examined their use of and interest in principal pipelines. Additionally, Susan co-led multi-year evaluations of principal preparation and support programs funded by grants from the Department of Education i3 program. Susan’s school leadership work is informed by over 25 years of research on talent and resource management issues for the Department of Defense including studies of the defense acquisition workforce and the military child care system. In addition to her research activities, Susan serves as the Director of RAND’s Office of Research Quality Assurance and is a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Susan received her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford Graduate School of Business and her M.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Stanford University.