Dr. Matthew Soldner (@mattsoldner) is the Acting Director of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Since 2018, he has also served as the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) at the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). He is the Department’s Evaluation Officer, responsible for the Department’s effort to design, conduct, and learn from evaluations of federal programs and policies. He also oversees the Department’s Regional Educational Laboratories, which partner with educators and policymakers to increase the use of research and evidence to enhance education programs and improve student performance, and the What Works Clearinghouse, which reviews education research to provide educators with information they can use when making evidence-based decisions.

His areas of interest include the use of rigorous evidence to improve education policy and practice and the implementation and evaluation of efforts to improve postsecondary outcomes for students. Before coming to NCEE, Dr. Soldner was a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research where he focused on postsecondary education and the workforce. He began his federal service at IES’s National Center for Education Statistics. Dr. Soldner’s masters and doctoral degrees are from the University of Maryland’s College of Education.