Michael Karcher

Shannon Varga, the Senior Director of Data and Research for JPEF, seeks to lead mixed methodological approaches to counteracting the systemic conditions that restrict opportunities for underserved students and lead to disparities in student outcomes across the county. She aims to leverage JPEF’s historical partnerships with the community to implement and evaluate data-driven initiatives that cross sectors, improve collaboration of existing community assets, and make a measurable impact on school quality and education broadly in Duval County.

Before joining JPEF, Shannon was a Research Assistant Professor at Boston University and the Associate Director of Research and Evaluation for the Community Engaged Research and Evaluation Sciences (CERES) Institute for Children and Youth, housed in the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. Shannon has spent 10+ years conducting research in the education and youth development space, specifically understanding the complex relation between social capital, relationships, and student outcomes. She was also previously a Postdoctoral Research fellow at America’s Promise Alliance where she led research on school and workforce engagement for underserved populations (e.g., emergent multilingual students, justice-involved youth, youth who have interrupted education) and has over 5 years of experience translating this research to national, mixed-stakeholder, audiences.Shannon earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology: Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and her BA in psychology from Montclair State University. After living in several states on the east coast, Shannon is excited to invest in her new home state of Florida and maximize the impact of the existing community efforts and energy for serving students in Duval County.

Shannon M Varga, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Data & Research, Jacksonville Public Education Fund
40 East Adams St., Suite 110, Jacksonville, FL 32202
Email: shannon@jaxpef.org
https://www.jaxpef.org/about-us/staff-directory/shannon-varga-phd/https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shannon-Varga

Jonathan F. Zaff, PhDChair, Department of Applied Psychology and Professor of Applied PsychologyNortheastern
University404 International Village
j.zaff@northeastern.edu
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonathan-Zaff

Jonathan Zaff, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at Northeastern University. A developmental psychologist, his research focuses primarily on understanding how to create the conditions within which all children and youth thrive, particularly youth from backgrounds that have been historically oppressed. Taking this positive youth development approach, the results of his work have appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and books, presented at local, national, and international conferences, quoted widely in the popular press, and used by youth development organizations in their program designs. His projects have included, among others, understanding the lived experiences of youth who leave high school without graduating, youth civic engagement, and the role of comprehensive community initiatives in supporting youth thriving. Most recently, Dr. Zaff’s work has examined how the constellation of social supports in a youth’s life (aweb of support) can encourage positive educational, vocational, and social and emotional outcomes.

Prior to joining the faculty at Northeastern University, Dr. Zaff was the founding director of the CERES Institute for Children & Youth at Boston University. He was also the founding executive director of the Center for Promise, which was the research division of America’s Promise Alliance and a university-based research center first at Tufts University and then Boston University. Dr. Zaff began his career as a research associate at Child Trends and founded a youth policy organization.