A researcher of measurement, and what it does — or doesn't — for students.
Sixteen-plus years at the American Institutes for Research, two universities, three IES grants as Principal Investigator, and one through-line: making large-scale assessment work better for the students it was built to serve.
Burhan Ogut is a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the co-founder and CEO of the Inclusive AI Institute. His work pairs psychometric methods with modern machine learning and data-mining techniques to surface what large-scale education data can tell us about equity, accessibility, and the path from secondary school into postsecondary education and the labor market.
For more than fifteen years he has designed and led research and evaluation studies in K–12 and postsecondary education with a focus on equity. He has been a senior researcher and analyst on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) since 2008, contributing to studies on college-readiness benchmarks, achievement-gap reporting, course-taking sequences, motivation in low-stakes assessment, and the accessibility of digital tests for students with disabilities.
As Principal Investigator he has been awarded three grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) totaling more than $1.3M, plus participation in the IES SEERNet Digital Learning Platforms research network. He has held a teaching role in the dual master's program in Applied Economics and Social and Economic Policy at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy, where he also maintains a faculty page.
Education
PhD, Cognitive Psychology (minor in Statistics)
Certificate of Social Science Methodology
MA, Cognitive Psychology
BS, Teaching Physics
Current roles
Principal Researcher
Leading research and evaluation studies on educational equity, assessment accessibility, course-taking, and postsecondary transitions; conducting psychometric and statistical analyses; directing technical reviews of NAEP reports and documentation.
Co-founder & CEO
Building AI-driven tools and educational programs to empower individuals from underserved and marginalized communities — including learners with disabilities, at-risk youth and adults, and the professionals who support them.
Senior Advisor
Instructor
Earlier positions
Statistical Consultant & Research Assistant
Teaching Assistant / Instructor
Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive and Sensory Processes, General Psychology.
Teaching Assistant & Instructor
Information Technologies in Education, Instructional Materials, Computer Assisted Instruction. Adapted Intel's "Teach to the Future" program into Turkish K–12 curriculum.
Professional affiliations
Service
Peer reviewer for IES (FY2020 Single-Session Peer Review Panel), AERA, NCME, SREE, the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness; regular reviewer for peer-reviewed journals in educational measurement and education research.
For a full CV and selected presentations, please get in touch.