PhD, 2017 Jeff Harding currently works for the Georgia Department of Education as an analyst and project manager in the Accountability Department, where he works with data related to the state’s College and Career Ready Performance Index. Previously, Harding was the Senior Director of the Innovation Lab at Cognia, a global school-improvement and accreditation organization headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia. Having begun his career as a middle school language arts and social studies teacher, Harding combined the skills and knowledge he gained studying higher education at IHE to focus on studying education issues from a P-20 pipeline perspective. While a student he co-authored an article with Professor Rob Toutkoushian and fellow classmate Maggie Parker that was published in the journal Teachers College Record. The study focused on the relationship between the timing of students’ childhood- and teenage-year aspirations and decisions about college and their subsequent plans and college application behaviors when they were seniors in high school. Harding’s research interests include student loan policy, teacher labor markets, and the transition of students from K-12 into postsecondary education.
