Emily Kalejs Qazilbash serves as the Assistant Superintendent for the Office of Human Capital in Boston Public Schools. In this role, she is part of a team implementing hiring practices that enables BPS to have an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school, and an innovative performance evaluation system focused on growth and development. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Office of Human Capital, where she worked as a strategist for the department. Before that, she was an Implementation Specialist in the Office of Educator Effectiveness, where she supported and coached principals to help teachers improve their instruction through implementation of the performance evaluation system and also designed professional development for aspiring and current principals to deepen their skills in instructional leadership. Emily began her career as a teacher in Baltimore and Boston, and then created and directed professional development programs for both new and experienced BPS teachers. In subsequent positions, Emily conducted research focused on issues of teacher quality and has consulted with a variety of non-profits on issues such as educator evaluation, teachers unions, school reform efforts, and Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) programs; Emily also helped design Massachusetts’ 2011 regulations on educator evaluation. Emily is a research affiliate with the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers (NGT) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned her masters and doctoral degrees in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy. She also holds a B.A. in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia. She can be reached at: Emily_Qazilbash@mail.harvard.edu

Nicole completed her doctorate in Culture, Communities and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before HGSE, she served as the Director of Early College Awareness Programs and Hiring Committee Chair at a new, small, public high school in Brooklyn, NY. Simon holds a B.S. in Human Development and an M.S. in Design & Environmental Analysis, both from Cornell University. She received the 2007 Global Kids Urban Educator Fellowship, which supported her work developing a mentoring program for young men of color, and the 2011 Radcliffe/Rappaport Doctoral Policy Fellowship, which supported her work on educator evaluation at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She can be reached at: nss140@mail.harvard.edu.