Marie O’Hara joined Achieve as a Research Associate in October 2009. As a member of the content and policy research team, she primarily works on Achieve’s international benchmarking projects and on the annual 50-state survey and report, researching state policy efforts in standards, graduation requirements, college-and career-ready assessments, data, and accountability systems.

Prior to joining Achieve, Marie spent four years at the American Institutes for Research working as a research associate on a number of federally-funded education projects, including the National Center for Technology Innovation, the Reading First program, and the What Works Clearinghouse. Marie also spent a year as a research fellow with the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. researching the effectiveness of the Tulsa Public Schools pre-K program.

A Philadelphia native, Marie holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wake Forest University and a master’s of public policy from Georgetown University where she wrote her thesis on the relationship between state-level education policies and high school academic achievement. She currently lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband.