Illuminations and Insights

Get to know Product Manager Joshua Terchek in the latest installment of our Day in the Life blog series. In this blog, Joshua discusses his product development work on EA's data visualization tools, Rally and Podium, how asking thoughtful questions and leading with empathy helps him build better products, and how he discovered his passion for cooking.

Every summer, Education Analytics (EA) is fortunate to welcome a new cohort of interns to provide additional support and learn alongside our teams. Our organization benefits significantly from the diverse range of perspectives and insights that interns bring to EA, and we wanted to highlight the 2025 internship cohort and their accomplishments. In this blog, we invited them to share their thoughts about their internship experience at EA, what they've learned throughout their internship, and what advice they would give to future EA interns.

Get to know Senior Software Engineer Bjorn Hauge in the latest installment of our Day in the Life blog series. In this blog, Bjorn discusses his career journey from working in internal business intelligence to making the pivot to software engineering, how he utilizes creativity while building applications, and his love for the outdoors.

What if schools could predict, as early as 9th grade, whether a student is on track to qualify for competitive scholarships or meet college admissions criteria? And what if those predictions could trigger timely interventions—like course recommendations, test prep, enrichment opportunities, or targeted advising—to change that student’s path? In our latest blog, Director of Services Tracy Diel, Research Analyst Manager II Julia Finch, and Research Associate Rinor Jahiu, discuss how this is the goal of EA's new predictive modeling initiative, supported by the multi-state Ed-Tech Collaboratory (ETC).

In U.S. education research, we face a persistent challenge: for the billions of dollars invested during the last 50 years, why are student outcomes in this country not improving? Working at the crux of education research, policy, and technology, EA believes the current processes and systems involved in doing research are nearing their limits. This blog, written by Director of Research & Analytics Services Molly Stewart and Chief Operating Officer Libby Pier, aims at not only examining these challenges but also identifies ways in which we and our partners in state and local education agencies, institutions of higher education, and other non- and for-profit technology groups are working on innovative solutions to these challenges.

Get to know Services Delivery Lead Ruth Brandvik in the latest installment of our Day in the Life blog series. In this blog, Ruth discusses her role as both a bridge and a communication conduit between EA's internal technical teams and our partners, what interested her in working at EA, and how she utilizes the skills of organization and communication in her everyday work.