Kara Finnigan

Kara Finnigan is Associate Dean and Professor of Education Policy at University of Michigan’s Marsal School of Education and was recently the Senior Vice President at the Spencer Foundation. Previously, she spent 19 years at the University of Rochester, most recently as Professor of Education Policy and Leadership and as a Distinguished Equity, Inclusion, and Social Transformation Fellow with the UofR's Office of Equity and Inclusion. Finnigan has conducted research and evaluations of K-12 educational policies and programs at the local, state, and federal level for more than 30 years. She has written extensively about high-stakes accountability and school choice and focuses on issues of racial justice and equity in policy design, implementation, and outcomes. Finnigan has published two edited books and co-authored Striving in Common: A Regional Equity Framework for Urban Schools (Harvard Education Press). Finnigan's research blends perspectives in education, sociology, and political science and employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, including social network analysis and GIS mapping. She is currently studying connections between education and housing policies; social movements around integration in metropolitan areas; and the social networks of educational leaders around research evidence. Finnigan has served in many leadership roles for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and was the 2nd Editor in Chief of AERA Open, the association’s only peer-reviewed open access journal. She has served on local and national policy-related committees. She became interested in policy and systems change when she served on the policy task force of a non-profit in New York City serving homeless women and their children, and began her work in K-12 education as a substitute teacher in Anchorage, Alaska.