Maren Harris

Welcome to my little corner of the Catalyst website. I’m Maren, an educational researcher and evaluator located in New Jersey. I started out as a teacher, and have gradually progressed through different levels of the education world during my career. It might not seem like a former first-grade teacher is the obvious choice for someone to help clients dig through their data. But watching those six-year-olds, and how their sponge-like brains enabled them to grow so much in one short year, helped me realize that curiosity is my true passion. So I left the classroom and continued my educational journey, receiving an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Since then, my work has focused on how to find the real story of what’s happening, and how to share that information in compelling ways.

To do this work, I have a tool chest that includes a number of qualitative tools: instrument development, leading interviews and focus groups, co-interpretation with participants and clients alike, observation of programs in action, and staying current with trends and research. From there, my job is all about meaning-making. Sometimes that involves NVivo analysis, and other times I’m writing formal reports and journal articles. It almost always includes deep conversations with the people who are most invested in using the data to make significant changes. My collaborations include school districts, state departments of education, federal grant programs, non-profits, higher education, state agencies, philanthropic organizations, and beyond.

I like to be intellectually stimulated, and I like to work with clients who can be true thought partners in critical thinking, problem solving, and strategic planning. I’ve been with Catalyst since 2012 and love being in a job where my colleagues and clients help me ask and answer meaningful questions every day.