Dr. Elisabeth A. Barnett is a Senior Research Associate at the Community College Research Center and the Institute on Education and the Economy (IEE), Teachers College, Columbia University, and affiliated with the National Center for Postsecondary Research. She is involved with research projects related to reducing the need for remediation in college, developmental education, credit-based transition programs, and access to college. She previously served as Assistant Director of the Office of Community College Research and Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Barnett’s research interests relate to high school to college transition, community colleges, access to college, and institutional change. She has conducted or participated in research on middle and early college high schools, dual enrollment, Tech Prep, P-16 initiatives, career and technical education practices, and community college persistence. Her publications include a co-edited volume of New Directions in Community Colleges entitled Academic Pathways to and from the Community College (with Bragg; Jossey-Bass Publishers), Dual Credit: Making It Work in Illinois (with Gardner and Bragg, UIUC), and Changing Systems, Changing Lives: The Broader Impact of the College and Career Transitions Initiative (editor; in press).

Dr. Barnett received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Educational Organization and Leadership- Higher Education with a focus on community college issues. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Validation Experiences and Persistence Among Urban Community College Students. She also has bachelors and masters degrees from the School for International Training and from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Barnett is also associated with the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching at Teachers College. She is project director for a research initiative designed to support the development of early college high schools associated with the Middle College National Consortium and other intermediary organizations.