Darren Woodruff, Ph.D.

Dr. Darren Woodruff is a Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research. He joined AIR in 1998, after four years at Yale with the Comer School Development Program. While at Yale, Dr. Woodruff worked as an Associate Research Scientist, helping to implement and evaluate the School Development Program in several school districts. He collected data on school climate from teachers, students and parents, conducted interviews, and observed classroom instruction in School Development Program schools. Dr. Woodruff’s evaluations of school climate were used by school personnel to evaluate progress with school reform and to make changes to school and classroom practices. In addition, Dr. Woodruff was a lead author for publications and reports on School Development Program outcomes. His work with the School Development Program was published in the book Child by Child, the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, Metropolitics, and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America.

At AIR, Dr. Woodruff has collected data from schools and children’s mental health agencies, conducted workshops and focus groups with family members, teachers, school staff and mental health administrators, and has written extensively on effective programs for children placed at risk. He was lead author on the 1999 monograph, The Role of Education in a System of Care: Effectively Serving Children with Emotional or Behavioral Disorders and was a contributing author to the 1999 report, An Educators’ Guide to Schooolwide Reform. Dr. Woodruff also served as coordinator for the 1999 national education conference, “Safe and Effective Schools for All Students: What Works.”

In addition to these activities, Dr. Woodruff currently serves as technical assistance coordinator with AIR’s Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center, consulting with state and local departments of education and providing training to school districts on topics such as school-wide discipline, violence prevention, disproportionality, and accessing the general education curriculum. Dr. Woodruff received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and communication from Stanford, a master’s degree in education from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Howard University.