WestEd's Natalie Lacireno-Paquet conducts research and evaluation projects geared toward program improvement.

A Senior Program/Research Associate for Learning Innovations at WestEd, Lacireno-Paquet is evaluating the implementation and impact of 22 Community Learning Centres (CLCs) in English language schools throughout the province of Quebec, as well as the work of the CLC technical support team.

Lacireno-Paquet also is developing an internal Quality Review process for a network of charter schools, School for Academics and Technologies. As part of this work, she has developed a process using a set of interrelated data collection tools that diverse school teams will use to provide feedback to schools undergoing the review. Her work will help improve the effectiveness of these schools for high school dropouts.

In addition to her evaluation work, Lacireno-Paquet conducts research as part of the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands, working in partnership with the Education Development Center and American Institutes for Research. Her work on the key features of Response-to-Intervention initiatives in the Northeast and Islands region will help states considering or implementing these types of initiatives to address requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and to help schools meet accountability targets.

Prior to joining WestEd, Lacireno-Paquet served as an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and worked in the survey division at Mathematica Policy Research. She also served as a graduate research fellow at the Center for Washington Area Studies at George Washington University, where she evaluated charter schools in Washington, DC. This work helped recognize the need to account for the diversity of charter school type in research analysis.

Lacireno-Paquet recently coauthored "Institution Advocacy and the Political Behavior of Charter Schools," published in Political Research Quarterly, and "Moving Forward or Sliding Backwards: The Evolution of Charter School Policies in Michigan and the District of Columbia," published in Educational Policy.

She received a BA in political science from McGill University, and a master's degree in public policy and women's studies and PhD in public policy, both from George Washington University.