Melissa Yisak

Melissa Yisak is a senior researcher at AIR. She specializes in mixed-methods program evaluations and research studies and her main areas of interest include teacher preparation, youth development, and restorative justice. Her responsibilities include conducting interviews and focus groups and analyzing the data, conducting descriptive and inferential analyses with extant and survey data, managing client relations, and creating deliverables that are easily accessible to practitioners. She currently serves as the project director for the NSF-funded Western Regional Noyce Alliance Study and deputy project director and implementation lead of the NIJ-funded study Examining the Efficacy of Restorative Circles on School Safety and Student Outcomes. She previously served as the project director for the Boettcher Teacher Residency program evaluation, East Harlem Teaching Residency Evaluation, the Girls Inc. Impact Evaluation, and Simulated Instruction in Mathematics Professional Development (SIM PD) Study.

Prior to joining AIR, Yisak worked as a research analyst on an evaluation of the NSF-funded Graduate Research Fellowship Program at NORC at the University of Chicago.