NEPC Topic Experts on Education and the Workplace

Arnold Danzig runs the doctoral program in educational leadership and is a professor at San Jose State University. He was previously professor of leadership and policy studies and the associate director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University, and served as the director of the Division of Advanced Studies in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education at ASU.  He has authored or co-authored numerous articles, books, and reports on administrative leadership and education policy.  He is an editor of the Review of Research in Education sponsored by the American Educational Research Association.

Email Arnold Danzig at Arnold.danzig@sjsu.edu

Marisa Saunders is associate director for research at UCLA’s Center for Community Schooling. Her primary areas of research focus on K-12 transformation efforts aimed to address long-standing educational inequalities. She has conducted extensive research that explores the potential and challenges associated with college and career pathways. Marisa has authored a number of publications and books including Beyond Tracking: Multiple Pathways to College, Career, and Civic Participation and Learning Time: In Pursuit of Educational Equity.

Email Marisa Saunders at: m.saunders@ucla.edu

William F. Tate IV, former president of Louisiana State University, became the 22nd president of Rutgers University in May 2025. Previously, he was provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at the University of South Carolina and held the USC Education Foundation Distinguished Professorship with appointments in Sociology and Family and Preventive Medicine (secondary appointment). Prior to joining the University of South Carolina faculty, he served as dean and vice provost for graduate education at Washington University in St. Louis, where he held the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professorship in Arts & Sciences. Tate is a past president of the American Educational Research Association, where he was awarded fellow status. In addition, he was elected to the National Academy of Education. Tate earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was a Patricia Roberts Harris Fellow. He continued on to the University of Wisconsin at Madison as an Anna Julia Cooper Post-doctoral fellow in social policy. He completed a second post-doctoral training program in the Department of Psychiatry—Epidemiology and Prevention Group at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned a master’s degree in psychiatric epidemiology (MPE).