Senta A. Raizen has been involved in science education for five decades, starting with her position as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Officer dealing with curriculum improvement during the 1960s.

As Director of the National Center for Improving Science Education at WestEd, Raizen has led or participated in many projects aimed at science education reform for the 1990s and beyond. Heading a study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, she edited The High Stakes of High School Science, a report calling for reform of curriculum, instruction, and assessment and other practices in secondary school. Prior to that, she was responsible for a series of reports dealing with science education reform at the middle and elementary school level.

She has led a number of major evaluation efforts, including evaluation of several federally sponsored programs that provide pre-service education and professional development for science and mathematics teachers. Raizen frequently provides quality services in both formative and summative evaluation to clients conducting a wide range of formal and informal programs in mathematics, science, and technology education. Raizen's evaluation services enable program staff to gain increased knowledge and skills regarding program evaluation, thus having a greater internal capacity to design and implement effective evaluation plans.

Raizen has authored or edited a number of books and many articles in science and technology education. She has served in an advisory capacity to several national and international education studies, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science assessments, the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), and the National Goals Panel reports.

She has been a member of the International Steering Committee of TIMSS and of the Science Functional Expert Group for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international literacy assessment of 15 year olds (Programme for International Student Assessment). Most recently, she co-chaired the committee that developed a new Framework and Assessment Specification to guide the science assessment that is being administered by NAEP in 2009 and beyond, thus shaping the very nature of science education in this country. She currently serves on the NAEP Standing Committee that oversees the NAEP science assessments. Her current work includes the development of a framework and assessment specifications for a NAEP assessment of technological literacy and the development of a white paper for assessing 21st century skills, funded by Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.

Raizen began her career as an industrial chemist and is certified as a chemistry high school teacher. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Educational Research Association.

In 2006, Raizen received the Paul D. Hood Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Profession for a lifetime of national and international leadership in science education. Raizen and her NAEP Framework Team colleagues at WestEd also received this distinguished award for their work developing the framework for science assessment for "the Nation’s Report Card."

Raizen received college and advanced degrees in chemistry.