Senior Researcher
Coffey Consulting, LLC
Bethesda
MD
Biographical Sketch: Dr. Amy Topper is a Senior Researcher with a Coffey Consulting. She has worked in education as a teacher and researcher for over 16 years and is interested in issues of student access and success, financial aid policies, vocational/career training education, charter schools, historically marginalized student populations, and knowledge mobilization. Dr. TopperÃÂs areas of expertise include program and policy evaluation, paper and e-survey design and administration, and qualitative research methods including interviews, focus groups, and visual techniques. She is a well-versed program manager and has managed and collaborated on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies examining higher education outcomes for the U.S. Department of Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the National Education Association, the Community College Research Center, among other governmental and non-governmental organizations. Dr. Topper holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy and Evaluation with a specialization in Higher Education from Arizona State University, a MasterÃÂs in Leadership in Teaching from the University of Notre Dame of Maryland, and a BachelorÃÂs in Liberal Arts and Classical Languages from St. JohnÃÂs College.