Our Team

BRYAN C. HASSEL  is Co-Director of Public Impact. He consults nationally with leading public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and foundations working for dramatic improvements in K–12 education. He is a recognized expert on charter schools, school turnarounds, education entrepreneurship, and teacher and leader policy. His work has appeared in Education Next, Education Week, and numerous other publications; he blogs for Education Next and is a frequent guest blogger on other forums, such as Education Week. Dr. Hassel received his Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University and his master’s degree in politics from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his B.A. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which he attended as a Morehead Scholar. He is a senior research affiliate with the Center on Reinventing Public Education, and a nonresident senior fellow with Education Sector. Read more…

EMILY AYSCUE HASSEL  is Co-Director of Public Impact. She provides thought leadership and oversight to Public Impact’s work on teacher and leader policy, organizational change, parental choice of schools, and emerging opportunities for dramatic improvement in pre–K to grade 12 education. Ms. Hassel is leading Public Impact’s effort to develop and refine school and staffing models for reaching more students with excellent teachers. Her work has appeared in Education Week, Education Next, and other publications; she blogs for Education Next and is a frequent guest blogger on other forums, such as Education Week. Ms. Hassel was named to the inaugural class of the Aspen Teacher Leader Fellows program, designed to cultivate and support teacher leaders who are working to improve the teaching profession and student outcomes. She was previously a consultant and manager for the Hay Group, a leading human resources consulting firm. Ms. Hassel received her law and master in business administration degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served on the North Carolina Law Review. Read more…

JOE ABLEIDINGER is a senior consultant with Public Impact. He consults and leads project teams focused on a variety of education policy issues, including redesigning school models and teachers’ roles to extend the reach of excellent teachers, online and blended learning and emerging technologies in education, teacher and leader policy, school turnarounds, and charter schools. Before joining Public Impact, Mr. Ableidinger taught high school English with the Fulbright Program in Korea and started a family resource center at an underperforming elementary school as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. Mr. Ableidinger received his B.A. with highest honors from Duke University, his master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School. Read more…

SHARON KEBSCHULL BARRETT is a senior editor with Public Impact. She edits the Public Impact and Opportunity Culture blogs, copyedits Public Impact’s reports, and provides research and writing for the firm. Her recent work focuses on extending the reach of excellent teachers, charter schools, and state policy. A former newspaper reporter and copy editor, Ms. Barrett is the author of two cookbooks, Desserts from an Herb Garden and Morning Glories (St. Martin’s Press). She has a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served as editor of The Daily Tar Heel. Read more…

LYRIA BOAST is a senior consultant at Public Impact. She is the organization’s analytics team coordinator and serves on the firmwide management team. Ms. Boast leads Public Impact’s work to improve charter school authorizers’ academic performance frameworks and to develop a national database of authorizers and their schools.  She has also contributed to projects on post-Katrina education reform in New Orleans, extending the reach of excellent teachers, and evaluating school turnarounds. Ms. Boast has been a research assistant in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a research analyst at Abt Associates, where she conducted large survey research projects under contract for the federal government. She holds a B.A. in English and economics from Wellesley College. Contact Lyria…

GRETCHEN BRUCE is the human resources coordinator and business operations assistant at Public Impact. She coordinates hiring, training, and event planning, and contributes to special projects as needed. Ms. Bruce previously worked in a consulting practice for state and local governments within a large professional services firm. She holds a B.A. in journalism from Texas A&M University. Contact Gretchen...

DANIELA DOYLE is a senior consultant with Public Impact.  Her work addresses a wide range of education issues, including teacher quality, school finance, turnarounds, and redesigning school models and teachers’ roles to extend the reach of excellent teachers. Ms. Doyle co-authored Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look “Under the Hood” of Teacher Evaluation Systems, which won the 2012 “Most Actionable Research” Eddies! award from the PIE Network. A former elementary school teacher, she is an alumna of Teach For America and Education Pioneers, a nonprofit bringing innovative leaders to education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Princeton University, a master’s degree in science for teachers from Pace University, and a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University. Read more…

TIM FIELD is a senior policy fellow with Public Impact.  He consults and leads project teams to provide clients with research-based guidance on a wide range of policy and school management issues, including school turnarounds; charter school quality; and educator effectiveness, evaluation, retention, and compensation.  Mr. Field is leading Public Impact’s work to support state education departments as they implement school turnaround strategies funded by the Race to the Top competition. Before joining Public Impact, Mr. Field was a regional director for the KIPP Foundation, where he provided coaching support to KIPP executive directors, coordinated internal and external resources, and provided quality oversight to ensure that KIPP regions are prepared to open and sustain high-performing schools in their communities.  Before that, Mr. Field was the deputy chief of Charter, Partnership and New Schools with the School District of Philadelphia, where he designed and managed key elements of the district’s Renaissance School initiative to turn around chronically failing schools.  He began working for the Philadelphia schools as a resident from the Broad Foundation’s Residency in Urban Education, a national and highly selective two-year management development program that recruits and trains emerging leaders for senior management positions in public education.  He earned his B.A. from Oberlin College, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Contact Tim…

ANNE HALSTATER is an operations assistant at Public Impact, where she helps the administrative team with internal operations. After a career in electrical engineering, Ms. Halstater was an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles. She holds a bachelor’s degree in ceramic engineering and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers University. Contact Anne…

JIYE GRACE HAN is a consultant with Public Impact. Her work addresses a variety of topics, including retaining and extending the reach of high-performing teachers, teacher and leader quality, finance reform, and technology in education.  Ms. Han co-authored Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look “Under the Hood” of Teacher Evaluation Systems, which won the 2012 “Most Actionable Research” Eddies! Award from the PIE Network. Before joining Public Impact, she served as a Teach For America corps member working in a high-poverty school.  In 2011, she was named a national finalist for the Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teaching Award, given annually to second-year Teach For America corps members who embody and demonstrate the leadership needed to have an exemplary level of transformational impact with students. She wrote about that teaching experience on Impatient Optimists. Ms. Han produced multiple grade levels of progress with her fifth-graders across subjects each year, as well as developing their critical thinking skills and level of learning engagement. She has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s in teaching from Dominican University. Read More…

ELAINE HARGRAVE is a research assistant at Public Impact, where she supports projects by gathering research, assisting in the production of reports and presentations, and overseeing data collection efforts. Ms. Hargrave previously worked for a London law firm advising clients on intellectual property rights. She also managed a bank in Oxford, England, and provided financial planning advice to bank clients. For the biostatistics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ms. Hargrave conducted research on public health projects including breast cancer, HPV vaccination, and teen smoking. She graduated from the University of Exeter, England, with a B.A. with honors in politics. Contact Elaine…

CHRISTEN HOLLY is an associate consultant with Public Impact, conducting research and quantitative and qualitative analyses. She is working on projects addressing leading indicators of school turnaround success, cost and sustainability of school turnaround efforts, state takeovers of failing schools, and the next generation of policies to encourage charter school excellence. Before coming to Public Impact, she was a lecturer in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked in policy advisory roles at the state and federal level in both the public and private sectors, as well as working in the financial services industry. She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in economics from New York University, and a B.A. in economics from Duke University. Contact Christen…

TOM KOESTER is a research analyst with Public Impact. His work centers on examining school outcome data, developing quantitative models, analyzing state policy, and devising innovative and compelling methods for presenting education data. Before joining Public Impact, Mr. Koester worked as a site supervisor in New Orleans with Americorps, overseeing the rebuilding of homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Koester graduated with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in economics and a minor in Arabic. Contact Tom…

GILLIAN LOCKE is a consultant with Public Impact, conducting research and quantitative and qualitative analyses. Her recent work has focused on a variety of education policy issues, including charter school quality, virtual school accountability, school turnarounds, and school finance. Prior to joining Public Impact, she was the grants manager at Laying the Foundation, a nonprofit teacher training organization in Dallas. She also spent two years as a financial analyst in the real estate and infrastructure investment groups in the Dallas office of the Goldman Sachs principal investment area. A summa cum laude graduate of Austin College, Ms. Locke holds a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University. Contact Gillian…

ANGIE SPONG is a consultant with Public Impact, working on teacher and leader quality, school turnarounds, charter school quality, and school finance. Before joining Public Impact, Ms. Spong taught English in a public middle school in rural Japan. She also served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in Burlington, Vt. Ms. Spong graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she was initiated into the Davis Society and named Graduating Pro Bono Student of the Year, and is a summa cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University. Contact Angie…

LUCY STEINER is a consulting manager with Public Impact, where she leads complex projects, manages and develops other consultants, and serves on the firmwide management team. She and her project teams deliver research, training, and consulting on a variety of critical education issues, including teacher and leader policy, school restructuring, charter school policy, and teacher professional development. Her work often provides a bridge between district leadership, school leadership, and instruction. A former high school English teacher, Ms. Steiner holds a master’s degree in education and social policy from Northwestern University, and a B.A. with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Read more…

BEVERLEY TYNDALL is the production and communications coordinator at Public Impact. She helps Public Impact’s co-directors improve operations, and she coordinates several functions, including publications production, our website, and social media. She also contributes her skills to client projects. Ms. Tyndall previously worked in advertising and as production coordinator for J. Crew Catalog in New York City. Since earning a certificate in film from New York University, she has worked as a video editor and producer. Her credits include numerous educational and nonprofit videos, including a series on the Rural Community College Initiative, produced for the Ford Foundation. Ms. Tyndall is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in English. Contact Beverley…

CAROL WILLIAMS is the office manager for Public Impact. She coordinates Public Impact’s financial, technology, and office operations. Before joining Public Impact, Ms. Williams worked as a medical technologist and as a laboratory information systems analyst, where she was responsible for maintaining laboratory databases and laboratory-to-hospital interfaces. Her work in education includes serving as a preschool teaching assistant and an academic advisor for the athletics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Contact Carol…