Gurjeet (Sonica) Dhillon

Gurjeet (Sonica) Dhillon is a senior researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Dhillon is dedicated to furthering local and state efforts to mitigate student dropout through effective use of early warning system (EWS) data. She has led the development of an intensive EWS implementation professional development series. This blended in-person and webinar training series walks school and district personnel through the research behind the dropout challenge and provides an in-depth introduction to each step of the Early Warning Intervention and Monitoring System process, which was developed under the IES-funded National High School Center. Dhillon also conducted research to validate local early warning indicators. She coauthored Using the Freshman On-Track Indicator to Predict Graduation in Two Urban Districts in the Midwest Region, a report published by IES in 2012. She is currently assisting the Minnesota Department of Education and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to develop surveys to better understand how their respective statewide EWS are used by local schools.

In addition, Dhillon has contributed to several investing in innovation program evaluations and is knowledgeable of current fidelity of implementation practices. She coauthored a chapter, “Introduction to Implementation Fidelity,” in Meyers and Brandt (2014) Implementation Fidelity in Education Research. Dhillon has extensive experience managing complex, cross-organization communication to support research and collaboration, both through her current work at AIR and her prior work at Northwestern University where she was the project coordinator for the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, one of six National Science Foundation Science of Learning Centers.