As Associate Vice President of Research, Evaluation, & Impact, Dr. Marianna Fischer sets the strategic vision for how The Leadership Academy measures, learns from, and shares its impact. Since joining the organization in 2019, she’s led cross-functional efforts to design rigorous evaluation plans, build sustainable data systems, and embed cycles of learning across the organization. Her portfolio spans systemwide reviews, community engagement studies, and national research partnerships that inform both practice and policy. She also leads an internal committee focused on organizational culture and community.
Marianna also helps to support systems directly, partnering on client engagements to help education leaders better understand their data and to track the impact that changes in leadership practices can have on students’ experiences. In addition, she collaborates with universities, funding partners, and education leaders to share and present research and findings that shape the field of educational leadership.
Marianna previously shaped the research initiatives and organizational learning at New Leaders for eight years. She led the organization’s federal grants, including a randomized control trial of a leadership training program and a multi-year study of innovation in leadership development, ultimately sharing the findings with the broader field and authoring works that encouraged adoption of the promising practices the trial revealed. Prior to that, Marianna conducted numerous empirical program evaluations of federal and state grant interventions with low-income youth across universities and community nonprofits. She also previously served as an undergraduate instructor at the University of Hawaii, and Montclair University, and coordinated federal grants at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Marianna is a two-time graduate of the University of Hawaii, with a Ph.D. and a Master of Arts, both in Community and Culture Psychology. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Tulane University. She is based in Colorado.
