About

Leadership

Dr. Cynthia Osborne

Dr. Osborne is the Director of PEEQ and an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She is also the Director of the Texas Child and Family Research Partnership that provides consultation and evaluation services to the child support division of the Texas Office of the Attorney General. Dr. Osborne has extensive experience in evaluation of state and national programs, including the Texas Parenting and Paternity Awareness (p.a.p.a.) Curriculum, the Raising Texas initiative, and the Texas Home Visiting Program. Dr. Osborne joined the faculty of the LBJ School in 2005 after completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing at Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of teacher quality, social policy, poverty and inequality, family and child well-being, family demography, and school entry among disadvantaged children. Dr. Osborne holds a Ph.D. in Demography and Public Affairs from Princeton University, a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Masters of Arts in Education. Previously, Dr. Osborne taught middle school in a low-income community in California.

Dr. Jane Lincove

Dr. Lincove is the Co-Director of PEEQ and an Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She is also currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education. Dr. Lincove holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her research focuses on education policy and economics of education in the U.S. and in developing countries. Recently, she has been studying performance based incentives for teachers, as well as market based reforms in public education.

Dr. Paul von Hippel

Dr. von Hippel is a Faculty Research Associate on PEEQ and an Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He is a statistician and sociologist whose interests include education, obesity, banking, and fraud. His most recent work explores the role of schools in reducing inequality among children with regard to student achievement and health outcomes. He holds degrees from Yale, Stanford, and Ohio State University, and is a three-time winner of best-article awards from the education and methodology sections of the American Sociological Association.

Staff

Amanda Dillon

Amanda Dillon is a Senior Research Associate with PEEQ.  She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2008.  She is a graduate of the LBJ School’s Master of Global Policy Studies program where she specialized in development and focused her course work in evaluation.  Amanda headed several research projects including one for an Austin nonprofit working in Ethiopia and for the State Department’s Public Diplomacy Office evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of their programs and operations. In her current role, Amanda performs substantive research about policies and methodologies of evaluating both teachers and their preparation.

Laura Bellows 

Laura Bellows is a PEEQ Research Associate.  Laura received a Master’s in Public Affairs from Indiana University – Bloomington, where she concentrated in Policy Analysis.  Prior to graduate school, Laura taught fourth grade in Houston as a Teach for America corps member and served as a legislative aide to a member of the Texas House Committee on Public Education.  She graduated cum laude from Rice University in 2006 with a B.A. in History and English.  At PEEQ, Laura assists with data analysis and report writing, focusing primarily on the distribution, placement, and retention of new Texas teachers.