Sarah Thang is an education and public policy professional with over a decade of experience working with the public, private, and academic sectors, both as an educator and leading research-to-practice partnerships.
As senior manager of project delivery at Results for Development (R4D), Ms. Thang works on the EdTech Hub within the global education practice. She manages portfolios within the engagement team, which provides technical assistance and just-in-time support to country and intergovernmental leaders, including leading EdTech Hub’s work in the East and Southeast Asia regions, managing the Helpdesk, and running the Specialist Network. She also provides operational systems leadership across EdTech Hub, developing systems that streamline processes across a complex research consortium program with engagements spanning the globe.
Throughout her career, Ms. Thang has helped government and non-government stakeholders identify ways to obtain and use data for decision- and policy-making, such as by helping to launch the US Federal Government General Services Administration (GSA) Evaluation Division as well as by leading the development of the North Carolina and San Antonio Project Portals, platforms designed to facilitate applied research collaborations between governments and researchers.
She has also designed and/or conducted research and evaluation studies across various fields in education, with the goals of studying the impact of behavioral science-based interventions on education and mental health outcomes; understanding the impact of blended learning programs on learning and wellbeing; and developing an ecologically valid measure of children’s executive function and regulation related skills.
Before joining R4D, Ms. Thang was assistant director at The Policy Lab at Brown University, where she worked closely with the director to develop and implement the Lab’s strategic and operational initiatives and also led a suite of projects to facilitate government’s capacity to use evidence.
Ms. Thang began her career as an educator and teacher mentor at a school serving under-resourced students where she launched the district’s first successful Mandarin program, mentored new teachers, and managed the English Language Learners program.
Ms. Thang holds a master’s degree in international education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a certificate in nonprofit management from Rice University, and a Bachelor of Music in music composition/theory, English, and Asian studies from Vanderbilt University. Ms. Thang speaks English and Mandarin, and has basic knowledge of Teochew and Hokkien dialects.
Publications:
Thang S., Huh E. & Wilson K. (2021, October 01). The Policy Lab completes longitudinal study on the effectiveness of Providence Public School District’s Multilingual Learners programs. The Policy Lab. https://thepolicylab.brown.edu/reflections/longitudinal-study-on-the-effectiveness-of-PPSD-MLL-programs
Hurwitz, L.B., Macaruso, P., Thang, S., & Studwell, J. (2020). Accelerating Reading Skills among EL and non-EL Middle Schoolers: An Evaluation of the Lexia® PowerUp Literacy® Program. Concord, MA: Lexia Learning Systems LLC, a Cambium Learning® Group company.
