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Paul Goren

E4 Director

Paul Goren has spent his career in positions at the intersection of education practice, policy, and research. Prior to serving as E4 Director, he was Superintendent of Schools at Evanston/Skokie (IL) School District 65 for 5+ years where he led work on curriculum reform, racial equity, restorative practices and social/emotional learning while ensuring financial stability. Prior to joining District 65, Goren was Senior Vice President for Program at CASEL in Chicago. Previously he served as the Interim Chief for Strategy and Accountability for Chicago Public Schools while working as Executive Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research. Additionally, Goren worked in leadership positions in Minneapolis Public Schools and the San Diego City Schools, and as Senior Vice president of the Spencer Foundation and Program Director for Child and Youth Development at the MacArthur Foundation.

Ofer Malamud

Professor – Northwestern SESP
Faculty Advisor to the E4 Center

Ofer Malamud is an economist focused on education policy from an international perspective. His research is concentrated in three substantive areas: educational investments over the life course, the role of technology in the formation of human capital, and the effect of general and specific education on labor market outcomes. He has studied these topics in a wide range of institutional settings across countries such as Chile, England, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Scotland, and the United States.

Malamud is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the CESifo Research Network. He also serves as a research consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Before joining Northwestern, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Emma Adam

Edwina S. Tarry Professor – Northwestern University

Emma Adam is a developmental psychologist with an interest in applying theory and research on human development to informing policies and programs aimed at improving the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and young adults. She is an expert in the developmental psychobiology of stress and sleep. Adam studies how everyday experiences in the lives of children, adolescents and young adults impact their stress biology, with implications for emotional health, physical health and academic outcomes. She also examines social influences on sleep in children and adolescents, and the implications of variations in sleep timing and quality for health and performance.

Hannes Schwandt

Associate Professor – Northwestern SESP

Hannes Schwandt is a health economist and economic demographer who researches the relationship between economic factors and well-being, studying questions such as whether economic shocks or unemployment affect physical health, mortality, and fertility. He also researches the long-term human capital effects stemming from adverse health exposures during the prenatal period or early childhood. He joined SESP from the University of Zurich.

Molly Schnell

Assistant Professor – Northwestern University Economics Department

Molly Schnell examines how incentives and constraints facing both medical providers and consumers influence healthcare access, health behaviors, and health outcomes. Her research encompasses the causes and consequences of provider behavior, and much of her work focuses on the provision of pharmaceuticals in markets across the United States.

Karen Smilowitz

James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor – Northwestern University McCormick School of Engineering

Dr. Karen Smilowitz is the James N. and Margie M. Krebs Professor in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at Northwestern University and a professor of Operations at the Kellogg School of Management.  Dr. Smilowitz is an expert in modeling and solution approaches for logistics and transportation systems in both commercial and nonprofit applications.  She has been instrumental in promoting the use of operations research within the humanitarian and nonprofit sectors through the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as various media outlets.  Dr. Smilowitz is the Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Science and a Fellow of the INFORMS society.