The CNA Corporation Hires Dr. Sarah L. Friedman To Serve As Director Of Appalachian Regional Education Laboratory

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA—Robert Murray, president of The CNA Corporation (CNAC), has announced that Dr. Sarah L. Friedman has joined CNAC to serve as director of the Appalachian Regional Education Laboratory (AREL).

"Dr. Friedman is ideally suited for this task," Murray said. "She brings to the directorship exceptional skills as a manager of large, complex research enterprises and a career-long dedication to high quality research."

The goal of the laboratory—which serves Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee—is to assess the educational needs of the region’s state and local education agencies, school districts, and schools; to perform analyses of relevant existing data so as to fill information gaps pertaining to educational needs; and to implement rigorous educational research to meet some of those needs. The lab is one of a network of ten such labs working to identify, research, develop, tailor, and disseminate findings that will support continuous improvement in student outcomes and contribute to closing achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

"The regional labs have been a valuable resource for technical assistance to the educational leadership and to teachers in their regions," Friedman said. "Inspired by the No Child Left Behind Act and its call for evidence-based practices, the labs have broadened their mission. In the next five years they will conduct short-term analyses of educational policies and practices and high quality, rigorous research pertaining to teaching and learning in schools. It’s a very important mission that I'm proud to implement."

As AREL director, Dr. Friedman will have overall responsibility for its operations and for ensuring the quality of the lab’s work. Prior to joining CNAC, she was employed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), one of the National Institutes of Health, where she was special assistant to the director, Center for Research for Mothers and Children; and special assistant to the director, Office of Extramural Policy, Office of the Director. From 1987 through March 2006, she was the scientific manager and one of the primary architects and investigators for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, an internationally renowned research project.

Dr. Friedman, the first NICHD behavioral scientist to be awarded the prestigious National Institutes of Health Merit Award and the American Psychological Association (APA) Meritorious Research Service Commendation, is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for General Psychology. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology and the Journal of Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics and has previously served on the editorial boards of Child Development and Developmental Psychology.

Dr. Friedman holds an M.A. in educational psychology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in experimental and developmental psychology from The George Washington University.