Marguerite Roza Joins the Foundation as Senior Data and Economic Advisor for the U.S. Program's Education Work | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

SEATTLE -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that Marguerite Roza, Ph.D., has joined the foundation as a senior data and economic advisor in the U.S. Program, working across the foundation’s College-Ready and Postsecondary Success initiatives. Roza is a highly-regarded, innovative researcher whose work has informed education policy at the local, state, and national levels. In her new role, she will focus on current and future foundation research and lead efforts to help build the field of education finance while continuing to be a valuable resource to others.

“Marguerite is nationally recognized for her excellent work, and her background and expertise in data and research make her a tremendous addition and resource to our education teams,” said Greg Shaw, Director of Advocacy for the U.S. Program. “The foundation is very focused on building on our investments through innovative, evidence-based research, and we are happy to have Marguerite in this important role at the foundation. She will play a critical role in helping us to determine whether our investments are making a difference and use that information to help inform our education strategy and students’ success in high school, college and beyond. Her work will also continue to benefit our colleagues tackling education reform efforts around the country.”

Roza joins the foundation from the University of Washington’s College of Education, where she served as a research associate professor, as well as a senior scholar at the university’s Center on Reinventing Public Education. Her research work has focused primarily on education finance and the effects that fiscal policies at the federal, state, and district levels have on resources in classrooms and schools, as well as the direct impact that education policies have on education budgets and spending inside schools and within districts. Her calculations of dollar implications and cost equivalent tradeoffs have prompted changes in education finance policy at all levels in the education system. She has also been engaged in additional research that explored fiscal tradeoffs of wages and layoffs, cost implications of digital learning, likely results of proposed changes to Title I, and state-by-state projections of education spending.

Roza holds a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in education from the University of Washington. Previously, she served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy teaching thermodynamics at the Naval Nuclear Power School and has studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Amsterdam.