Biography:

Dr. Bertha Gorham joined the School of Education at American International College in 2020, where she has taught individualized research design, research methods, and teaching in a diverse society. She brings over 30 years of experience in educational research and evaluation, having served as a researcher for the Maryland State Department of Education.

Dr. Gorham was appointed to the Maryland Superintendent’s Committee to develop statewide school report cards and served as Executive Secretary to the Council of Statewide Planning of Educational Information Systems. She also served as Maryland’s representative to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Forum on Educational Statistics, published annual teacher supply and demand reports for the Maryland legislature, and served on the superintendent’s diversity in education committee.

Previously employed at the Education Development Center in Waltham, Massachusetts, Dr. Gorham evaluated federally funded projects addressing opioid addiction and infant and early childhood mental health. For ten years, she was a senior researcher at the Center for Research in Education at RTI International, leading national studies on safe and drugfree schools, teacher preparation, and early childhood development, and designing educational information systems for three states.

Education:

• Ph.D., Education Leadership and Policy Analysis — North Carolina State University (AERA/Spencer Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship; top honor for research on making schools work for children)
• M.S., Educational Measurement Research and Statistics — Johns Hopkins University
• B.A., Business — College of Notre Dame of Maryland

Research/Interests:

• Analysis of teachers’ participation in action research graduate programs
• Contextual factors measured by ethnographic techniques
• School-university partnerships

Teaching Areas:

Dr. Gorham teaches courses in educational research methods, diversity in education classrooms, educational research design, and program evaluation methods.

Publications:

• Analysis of teachers’ participation in an action research field based graduate program — paper presented at the Annual AERA Meeting (Division K – Teaching and Teacher Education, San Francisco, CA)
• Contextual Factors Being Measured by Ethnographic Techniques — poster presented at the Society for Research on Child Development biennial meeting (Tampa, FL)
• Changing Schools for Children: A school-university partnership — paper presented at the AERA Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA)

Awards:

• American Educational Research Association/Spencer Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
• Awarded top honor for her research on making schools work for children by the College of Education and Psychology at North Carolina State University.