#KeepingItReel:

Heather Jenkins, PhD ’11, chief executive officer at The Literacy Lab

“As chief executive officer of The Literacy Lab, Heather Jenkins pursues incredibly important work. Not only was she a stellar PhD student who produced a tremendous dissertation, but she subsequently worked hard to actualize her short- and longterm vision of the meaning of evidencebased research in the world of largely underrepresented minoritized students. She stands as great testimony to the practicality of a rigorous research-based PhD program and the ways in which PhD graduates of such programs can exert short- and long-term impact on individuals’ lives,” said Weis.

Throughout Jenkins’ time at GSE, Weis also extended valuable opportunities to her outside the classroom—like the chance to serve as an editorial assistant for the American Educational Research Journal, where Weis was editor.

“I learned so much about research and writing about the field of sociology of education, and thinking about the data telling the story, as opposed to the story leading you to choose the data. That is something that I have taken with me everywhere,” Jenkins said.

“I will say: ‘The data is going to tell me what I do from here, and that data is going to say what the priorities are. The data is going to say what the direction should be.’”

Jenkins reports that she has used this knowledge in every organization she’s been a part of—including The Literacy Lab, where she is currently working on developing and executing strategic plans.

“A lot of this first phase is really being sorted, but there’s going to be a lot of exciting things because of the Mackenzie Scott gift and my tireless commitment to using data to charter our path forward,” she said.