Jim Soland is a Professor of Research, Statistics, and Evaluation at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development, as well as an Affiliated Research Fellow at NWEA. His research is situated at the intersection of educational measurement, practice, and policy. Particular emphases include understanding how measurement decisions impact longitudinal uses of scores like evaluating programs and estimating student growth. Jim is currently employing this expertise to help the Commonwealth of Virginia develop a new, vertically scaled early literacy screener used to identify struggling readers and allocate funding to schools for interventions. Prior to joining the University of Virginia, Jim completed a doctorate in Educational Psychology at Stanford University with a concentration in measurement. Jim has also served as a classroom teacher, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, and Senior Policy Analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) in California.