Catalyst @ Penn GSE

Megan is the Associate Director of Innovation Programs at Catalyst @ Penn GSE. She received her EdD in Education Leadership from Penn GSE, where she has worked with educational leaders in various capacities to understand their work to improve equity, the dynamics and influence of collaboration with other leaders on their practice, and the role of continuous improvement in their change work. In her work at Penn, she engages in both the creation of professional development spaces for educational leaders across Catalyst’s network to cultivate and share strategic practices for systems-change using inquiry cycles and other tools drawn from improvement science, and research with these school-based partners on their improvement work. One of her projects involves convening district teams that include central office, school-based, and student leaders in an inquiry community centered on improving equity in student sense of belonging. This program provides teams with support in collecting and analyzing data to better understand disparities in student belonging, building capacity with improvement methods, and facilitating opportunities for community members to share resources and insights related to their team’s inquiry cycles. Her research focuses on exploring how leaders at varying levels in districts approach persistent challenges, and how their collaborations with others both within and external to their school communities influence their work to develop and implement solutions. Her approach is informed by previous roles as a central office administrator in the School District of Philadelphia and a special education teacher and coordinator in Washington, DC and Brooklyn, NY.