Megan Duff

Assistant Professor

Education

• Ph.D. 2021 – Teachers College, Columbia University, Education Policy
• M.A. 2015 – Teachers College, Columbia University, Education Policy
• M.S. 2011 – Bank Street College of Education, Middle School Education
• B.A. 2008 – Columbia University, English

Areas of Expertise

• School and District Improvement
• Education Leadership
• Education Policy
• Organizational Theory
• Mixed Methods Research

Background

Megan Duff specializes in school and district improvement with a particular focus on various approaches that aim to support organizational learning within schools and school systems. Duff started her career in education as a New York City middle school teacher. She went on to earn a masters and doctorate in education policy from Teachers College, Columbia University where she became interested in the role of networks and other forms of inter-organizational collaboration as a mechanism for supporting educational improvement. Duff then worked as a postdoctoral fellow on the Measuring Network Health Project at both University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University, a study of the initiation, development, and sustained impact of over 35 educational improvement networks across the United States. Her current work explores the potential for improvement networks to support transformational change within educational organizations.

Research

Megan Duff’s research focuses on school and district improvement and the organizations that support educational improvement. She uses mixed methods, qualitative, and quantitative approaches to examine three primary concerns related to educational improvement: 1) The leadership strategies and organizational conditions that support learning and improvement within organizations; 2) Partnerships, networks, and other forms of inter-organizational collaboration that have the potential to catalyze learning and improvement between organizations; and 3) Policy and institutional contexts that mediate organizational and system improvement efforts. Her research has been published in Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and the Peabody Journal of Education among others. She also serves as a member of the Improvement Scholars Networks hub team. Duff is committed to conducting research in close collaboration with policymakers and practitioners to ensure her work is directly responsive to and impactful in addressing problems of practice while also advancing knowledge in the field.