Allison Gandhi

Allison Gruner Gandhi is a vice president leading the Learning Supports Program Area at AIR. In this role she oversees project execution, human capital resource allocation, and business development for a portfolio of work related to early childhood, English learners, multi-tiered systems of support, and special education. Dr. Gandhi has extensive knowledge about special education policy and practice, especially around identifying and communicating about evidence-based practices to support improved outcomes for students with disabilities.

Currently, Dr. Gandhi is the Deputy Director and leads recruitment and implementation oversight activities for a large-scale, national impact evaluation of multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) in reading, funded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES). She is also the Principal Investigator on an IES-funded grant to develop and validate a rubric to measure implementation of integrated MTSS. During her career, Dr. Gandhi has led multiple district special education comprehensive review projects, state-level program evaluations, and federal research grants. Since 2005, Dr. Gandhi has led or served as technical advisor for the knowledge development work for the Office of Special Education Programs-funded National Center on Response to Intervention and National Center on Intensive Intervention. In this role, she spearheaded the development and ongoing maintenance of industry-leading tools charts that review and rate the technical rigor of screening tools, academic and behavioral progress monitoring tools, and academic and behavioral interventions. Dr. Gandhi has published and presented extensively on the topic of MTSS and evidence-based practices in special education.