Who We Are

The Story So Far

Our team has deep connections in the student, teacher, and teacher leader communities. We are joined by an outstanding global team of academicians, providing services that include research, psychometrics, and scoring expertise. The RAD Science team and its affiliates utilize evidence-­‐centered design, best scientific practices, engaging content and interfaces, and modeling appropriate C21 skills in our work to enhance self awareness and grow global citizens.

If you are interested in learning more about RAD Science quickly, feel free to download the 2 pager on the side panel.

Richard D. Roberts, Ph.D

Richard (Rich) is currently working exclusively on research and assessment development for RAD Science, and the development of strategic partnerships. An internationally acclaimed scientist-practitioner, for two decades he has been at the forefront of research and development of cognitive (e.g., ASVABTM) and noncognitive (e.g., SELF+eTM, ACT TesseraTM) skill assessment systems.

Rich has published over a dozen books and more than 200 articles on these topics in diverse sub-disciplines (including, education, psychology, business, medicine, and engineering). A selection of these publications may be found on the web site here.

Previously serving senior leadership roles at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), ProExam, and ACT Inc., Rich has worked closely with major organizations such as the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Army Research Institute, Australian Research Council, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Among Rich’s professional honors are two ETS Presidential Awards, two PROSE book awards, a University medal, a National Research Council Fellowship, and various early (and then later) career awards.

Micah Myers

Micah Myers is the Head of Operations: Applied Assessment and Intervention Development at RAD Science. In this position, she works in multiple roles including: business and product development, program management, and strategic partnerships. She gathers these disparate departments to work together leading to pioneering assessments and interventions for the multiple sectors that RAD Science serves. Before coming to RAD Science, Micah worked as the senior product manager for international and global workforce solutions at ACT, where she led internal and external vendor teams to develop and deliver assessments and curriculum in multiple languages, to K-12 and workforce organizations, around the globe. She has worked in non-profit and commercial sectors supporting epidemiological research, educational psychology, behavioral health, correctional re-entry, and workforce policy. Micah holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and English from the University of Iowa, and is working towards her MBA.

Ralf Schulze, Ph.D.

Ralf Schulze, Ph.D. is full professor for research methods, statistics, and psychometrics at the Psychological Institute, University of Wuppertal, Germany. He earned both his Ph.D. (Dissertation: “Meta-Analysis: A comparison of approaches”) and his Venia Legendi for psychology (Habilitation: Cognitive, differential, and structural perspectives of intelligence research) at the University of Münster, Germany. He also worked as a Research Scientist and consultant for the Educational Testing Service and was a Senior Research Fellow for the Center for Innovative Assessments, Professional Examination Service.

Ralf has received prizes both for his research (grand research award for young scientists of the University of Münster, Germany; Gustav A. Lienert award of the section “Methods and Evaluation” of the German Psychological Society) and his teaching (Teaching award of the University of Wuppertal in 2012 and 2016 for his statistics lectures).

His areas of specialization span the fields of statistics, research methods, psychometrics, and individual differences. Specifically, he focuses on research questions in meta-analysis as well as the development of measures and methods to assess individual differences in (social and emotional) intelligence, personality, and response distorting factors.

Gerald Matthews, Ph.D.

Gerald Matthews obtained his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. He is Research Professor at the Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central Florida https://www.ist.ucf.edu/People/Gerald-Matthews. He previously held faculty positions at Aston University, the University of Dundee, and the University of Cincinnati.

His research focuses on human performance, cognitive models of personality and individual differences, and task-induced states of stress, fatigue, and workload. His recent projects include studies of psychophysiological assessment of workload in human-machine teams, automation and fatigue in operators of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), methods for insider threat detection, and assessment of cognitive bias in decision-making.

His publications include over 300 journal articles and book chapters, and several co-authored books including Human Performance: Cognition, Stress and Individual Differences, Emotional Intelligence: Science and Myth, Attention and emotion: A clinical perspective, and Personality Traits. He has received awards linked to publications from the British Psychological Society, the Association of American Publishers, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. His research has been supported by multiple Department of Defense agencies, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, British research councils, and industry. He was the elected President of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, and of Division 13 (Traffic and Transportation Psychology) of the International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP). He is a Fellow of IAAP, and he serves on the editorial boards of Human Factors and Personality and Individual Differences.

Franklin Zaromb, Ph.D.

Franklin Zaromb, Ph.D. is the President of Research and Analytics International, a company that consults with organizations to design and implement psychological research studies; develop and evaluate new psychological and educational measurement techniques; and analyze large and complex data sets.

After obtaining his Ph.D. in Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2010, Dr. Zaromb was a Research Scientist in the Research and Development division at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ, from 2010-2015. In 2016, Dr. Zaromb joined the Department of Statistics and Research at the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education in Ramat Gan, Israel. His research interests include human learning and memory, judgment and decision-making, and educational and workforce applications of cognitive science. He has published in some of the leading psychology journals, including American Psychologist, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, and Psychological Science.

Vidya Sagar Athota, Ph.D.

Vidya Sagar Athota, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer and teaches Business Psychology and Human Resource Development in the School of Business at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, NSW, Australia. He has been employed at the Sydney campus since 2007.

Dr. Athota received his PhD from the University of New South Wales. He has published papers in high-impact international journals and has presented papers at a number of domestic and international conferences. His current research involves the study of human personality, resilience, cognition and non-cognitive skills in the context of workplace success. He is also accredited to provide psychological counselling and psychotherapy services to leaders in the workplace. Dr. Athota’s expertise also includes management diagnostics and multi-perspective assessments in the areas of personality, and cognitive, non-cognitive and entrepreneurial skills. He has provided services to various business organizations, including Fortune 500. Dr. Athota is also an assessor for Australian Research Council grant applications, Australian Government. Dr. Athota has received a number of grants and is involved in post-graduate supervision. Dr. Athota has also led several service learning trips to India and been an invited speaker at various international conferences around the world.

Anastasiya Lipnevich, Ph.D.

Anastasiya Lipnevich, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology and a Director of Faculty Research Development at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Originally from Belarus, Dr. Lipnevich received her Master’s degrees in Clinical Psychology, Education, and Italian language from the Belarusian State Pedagogical University, followed by her Master’s in Counselling Psychology from Rutgers University. In 2007 she earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology (Learning, Cognition, Development concentration), also from Rutgers University.

Dr. Lipnevich’s professional honors include, among others, Excellence in Dissertation Award from Rutgers University, the New Investigator Award 2010 from Division 3 (Experimental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association, and Postdoctoral Fellowship from Educational Testing Service. Dr. Lipnevich held visiting professorships at the University of Konstanz, Germany, Thurgau University, Switzerland, University of Otago, New Zealand, and National Institute of Education, Singapore, among others. She co-edited two books, Psychosocial skills in the 21st century (Lipnevich, Preckel, & Roberts, Springer 2016) and Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback (Lipnevich & Smith, 2018, Cambridge University Press). She has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, has delivered over 100 invited talks and presentations, and is an associate editor of three flagship journals (European Journal of Psychological Assessment, Personality and Individual Differences, and Frontiers in Education: Assessment, Testing, and Applied Measurement. Her research interests include the effects of differential feedback on student performance and psychosocial skills, as well as relation of psychosocial skills to meaningful educational outcomes.

Carolyn MacCann, Ph.D.

Carolyn MacCann is an Associate Professor at The University of Sydney’s School of Psychology, Sydney, NSW, Australia. She received her Ph.D. from The University of Sydney in 2006, and has completed post-docs at the Educational Testing Service (Princeton, NJ, USA) and the Australian Graduate School of Management (UNSW).

Her research has focused on two main areas: (a) psychological testing and test development, particularly of noncognitive constructs (“soft skills” like emotional intelligence, personality, time management, and teamwork), and considering non-standard methods such as situational judgment tests, and multi-media assessment; and (b) emotional intelligence, including both measurement issues, the prediction of key outcomes, and the processes by which emotional intelligence affects such outcomes. Typically modest (the co-founders had to add this last sentence) she has published over 100 articles or book chapters and has presented across the globe.

Thomas Kreuzberger

Tom Kreuzberger is an assistant principal, educator and curriculum developer in Los Angeles, California, with a background in both the humanities and psychopharmacology. His work spans multiple subjects and levels of education with a focus on middle school English and Mathematics instruction and curriculum, particularly with respect to building social and emotional learning skills in everyday classroom environments. He also works as a curriculum consultant for schools who wish to branch out into SEL curriculum enhancements and methodologies.

Most recently, Tom has started working with novel curriculum approaches that integrate a variety of academic as well as social and emotional skills. His philosophy as an educator and developer centers heavily on engendering student-ownership of learning through building core social and personal skills, particularly across conscientiousness and overall openness traits. Rather than relying purely on interventions, Tom’s approach heavily focuses on preventative measures through early childhood SEL instruction and practice to establish core routines that benefit personality dimensions and lead to long-lasting success and entrepreneurial thinking.

David Livert, Ph.D.

David Livert, Ph.D. is one of the few social psychologists who studies the preparation of food and professional kitchens. His research has examined chef personalities, conflict, teamwork, and how worked flourish in these stressful settings. An Associate Professor of Psychology at Penn State University’s Lehigh Valley campus, he has investigated these issues among chef students at the Culinary Institute of America, food production teams in professional kitchens, and American chefs cooking in Vietnam. His paper examining conflict among kitchen teams won a Best Conflict Paper award from the Academy of Management. He is author of the forthcoming book Making Dinner, to be published in 2019 by Bloomsbury.

As an accomplished survey and qualitative methodologist, Livert has conducted over 50 studies for clients ranging from non-profit organizations to institutions of higher education to financial institutions including: New York Department of Education, National Science Foundation’s GK-12 project, Office of the California State Librarian, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Fighting Back Project, the Sloan Foundation, the Allentown School District, and Allentown Housing Authority.

Livert’s research articles have appeared in scholarly journals including American Journal of Preventive Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Drug Issues, Journal of Social Issues, Multivariate Behavioral Research, Professional Psychology, and Sociological Methods. His awards include a Lawrence Kogan Fellowship in quantitative methods at the CUNY Graduate Center and a University Research Collaboration Fellowship at Penn State. He is currently a member of the Stanford University-based Menus of Change Research Collaborative. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees in psychology from Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. in social psychology from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Antonio Valdivia, Ph.D.

Antonio Valdivia Ph.D. is a Psychometrics Research Consultant for the Mexican Government, Industry and School settings. He also collaborates as Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Research Methods at Tecnológico de Monterrey and Universidad de Monterrey, Mexico.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Antonio Valdivia received his Educational Psychology Ph.D. from Washington State University (2014). His research focuses on the construction of validity arguments from both technical and non-technical evidence of psychological and educational tools when they are adapted across English – Spanish languages/cultures. More specifically, he works with tests created in the United States of America to develop editions targeting Hispanic individuals. Regarding assessment areas, his interests relate to non-cognitive, wellbeing, and learning features.

His research has been presented at the American Psychological Association (APA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), International Society for Emotional Intelligence (ISEI), and International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) conferences. He has published his work in Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, European Journal of Psychological Assessment, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, and Educational Media International, among other scholarly journals.

In 2019, Dr. Valdivia was recognized as the APA Division 52 International Outstanding Early Career Psychologist. Currently, for this APA’s section (Division 52/International Psychology), he serves as Chair Board Member of the Early Career Psychology Committee (2019-2022) and has recently been appointed as Co-Chair of the Latin-American Affairs Committee.

Louis Tay, Ph.D.

Louis Tay is an Associate Professor in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Purdue University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His substantive research interests involve well-being, character, and vocational interests within and outside the workplace. He has contributed to methodological research in the areas of construct validation, scale response processes, and measurement. He has published in journals such as Nature Human Behavior, Psychological Bulletin, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology. His research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Time, Scientific American, Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Science Daily, Business Insider, Newsweek, and the World Economic Forum. He has also received multiple awards for his research including the 2015 Association for Psychological Science Rising Star Award, the 2016 Ruut Veenhoven Award from the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization, and the 2016 Academy of Management Sage Publications/RMD/CARMA Early Career Achievement Award. He has served and is serving on the editorial boards of Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Psychological Assessment, Journal of Business and Psychology, and is currently an Associate Editor at Organizational Research Methods.

Veleka Allen, Ph.D.

Veleka Allen, Ph.D. is the founder of Vital Analytics, a company dedicated to promoting holistic approaches to patient care. These approaches include the use of two components:

1) Assessments to evaluate patient psychosocial needs
2) Interventions designed to address patient psychosocial gaps and improve outcomes.

Veleka has been employed in several industries, including Pharmaceutical Industry, Health Information Technology, Educational Testing, Public Health, and Academia. She has extensive experience in assessment development and validation, clinical outcomes, and health behavior. She has conducted independent research in quality of life, emotion regulation, and mental health, and has published in these areas.

Veleka earned her doctoral degree in Psychometrics from Fordham University. She also has master’s degrees in Public Health and Biostatistics from California State University Northridge and New York Medical College, respectively.

Robert Alig, M.B.A.

Robert “Bob” Alig currently serves as Liaison’s BusinessCAS Consultant, a role that he began in May 2017. Prior to joining Liaison, he served as Executive Vice President, School Products Group, at the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC); Vice President, Middle States Region for The College Board; and Assistant Vice President, Alumni Relations at the University of Pennsylvania (2001 – 2007). Bob also served as Director, MBA Program Office and the MBA Office of Admissions and Financial Aid for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (1994 – 2000). He started his professional career as a Sales Representative with Procter & Gamble. Bob has a B.A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and a MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management, from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Franzis Preckel, Ph.D.

Franzis Preckel, Ph.D., is full professor for giftedness research and education at the Department of Psychology of the University of Trier, Germany.

She received her doctor’s degree from the University of Muenster, Germany, in 2002. Her publications include over 130 journal articles, book chapters, (edited) books, and tests. Franzis has published her research in top ranked journals including Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, American Educational Research Journal, or Intelligence. She presented her research in more than 150 talks and is on the editorial board of Diagnostica, Gifted and Talented International, and the Journal of Advanced Academics. In 2017, Franzis received the path breaker award of the AERA special interest group on Research on Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent. Franzis’ main research interests focus on intelligence and giftedness, talent development, personality factors related to achievement, and psychological assessment including test construction.

Robert Schneider, Ph.D.

Robert Schneider, Ph.D., is president of Research & Assessment Solutions, Ltd., and was a senior research scientist at Personnel Decisions Research Institutes, Inc. Dr. Schneider’s primary research interests and expertise include personality assessment, assessment of novel and ill-studied constructs, and development of theoretical models to facilitate solution of important client problems. He also has extensive experience in personnel selection, having developed assessments of work-related knowledge, skill, ability, and noncognitive constructs using a wide range of methods (e.g., personality inventories, situational judgment tests, biodata inventories, work experience measures, work samples, and structured interviews). Earlier in his career, Dr. Schneider was involved in development of the O*NET content model (Peterson, Mumford, Borman, Jeanneret, & Fleishman, 1999).

Dr. Schneider has authored or co-authored over 100 technical reports, publications, and conference presentations. He was a co-awardee of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s 2010 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for work applying computer adaptive testing methodology to personality assessment; served on a select committee to review submissions for the Hogan Award for Personality and Work Performance, given annually by SIOP to the paper judged to have the highest potential to furthering understanding of personality as it relates to work performance; and has had his work anthologized in the Psychology of Individual Differences (Boyle, & Saklofske, 2004). He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Steven Paul Reise, Ph.D.

Steven Reise received his Ph.D. from the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota in 1990. At Minnesota, Dr. Reise worked under the supervision of David Weiss, one of the early pioneers of Item Response Theory (IRT)-based computerized adaptive testing, and the renowned personality researcher, Auke Tellegen.

Dr. Reise began his career at the University of California, Riverside in 1990 and subsequently joined the faculty of UCLA in 1998.

Dr. Reise has spent the majority of the last twenty years investigating the application of latent variable models in general and item response theory (IRT) models in particular to personality, psychopathology and health outcomes data.

In 1998, Dr. Reise was recognized for his work and received the Raymond B. Cattell award for outstanding multivariate experimental psychologist. Dr. Reise has over 150 refereed publications, including, two Annual Review Chapters, two contributions to APA Handbooks, several articles in leading journals such as Psychological Assessment and Psychological Methods, and finally, along with Dr. Susan Embretson, Dr. Reise has the leading textbook on item response theory called “Item Response Theory for Psychologists” (2000 and forthcoming). In 2018 he was recognized as one of the world’s most highly cited researchers based on Clarivate Analytics analysis of citations.

Amy Riker, M.A. Ed.

Amy is currently Regional Vice President, Government Relations at Curriculum Associates, Boston, MA.

Previously National Executive Director at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Amy led work on a variety of adult education programs, culminating in the launch of HiSET, which she saw adopted in 27 states/territories across the USA.

Amy earned her M.A. in Education/Adult Education and Training, as well as her B.S. in Business Management, from the University of Phoenix, and she is currently working to earn her doctorate in Management. Amy also currently serves as the Chair of the Education Division of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP).

Katherine Bassett, M.A. Ed.

A career educator, Katherine has advocated for students to receive the highest-quality of education regardless of their zip code or family circumstances. She has championed the strengthening of the teaching profession and the inclusion of educator voices in every aspect of education policy formation and implementation.

Prior to joining RAD Science, she served as President and CEO of the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, Director of Policy and Partnerships for the Center for Educator Effectiveness at Pearson, and as Director of Educational Relations, Educational Testing Service (ETS). She brings a strong mix of practice, research, and assessment development/scoring to the RAD Science team. In addition to co-founding RAD Science, Katherine Bassett serves as Director of Partnerships for the Center for Curriculum Redesign.

Katherine led the development of the Teacher Leader Model Standards; the Teacher Leadership Initiative Competencies and Capstone assessment; co-facilitated the Model Code of Ethics for Educators; and served on the InTASC standards revision committee. She developed the original Library Media and EMC Literacy assessments for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and led the development of performance-based assessments of educator practice in four states.

Katherine spent 26 years in the classroom as a middle school librarian and served as New Jersey’s State Teacher of the Year 2000.