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‌Madhabi Chatterji

Madhabi Chatterji, Ph.D., M.Ed., B.Sc. (Hons.) is Professor Emerita of Measurement, Evaluation, and Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College (TC), where she founded the Assessment and Evaluation Research Initiative (AERI, www.tc.edu/aeri). AERI is dedicated to promoting meaningful use of assessment-evaluation information to improve equity and the quality of practices and policies in education and other applied professions. Chatterji retired from TC following 21+ years of service (January, 2001 – August, 2022), prior to which she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement and Research at the University of South Florida’s College of Education (January, 1996-December, 2000), and Specialist/Supervisor of Research and Evaluation Services at the Pasco County School System in Florida (January, 1988-December,1995).

An award-winning and internationally-recognized methodologist and educationist, Professor Chatterji has over 100 refereed publications and edited volumes to date, including several articles in the topmost-tier academic journals in education and health fields. Her latest book is titled: User-Centered Assessment Design- An Integrated Methodology for Diverse Populations (2025, Guilford Publications, New York). She has taught and mentored numerous doctoral/advanced graduate students and post-doctoral researchers during her 35+ year-career.

Professor Chatterji’s academic interests and major publications focus on: Instrument Design, Validation, Validity and Test Use issues; Improving Evidence Standards and Methodologies for Implementing Evidence Based Practices (EBP) in education and other applied professions; Standards Based Education Reforms; Educational Equity; and developing Cognitively-based, Proximal Diagnostic Assessments for supporting learning and detecting learning gaps in students across the lifespan.

She received an Outstanding Publication Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA, 2004) for her lead article in the Educational Researcher, titled: Evidence on “What Works”—An Argument for Extended Term Mixed Methods Evaluation Designs. Chatterji’s membership as a methodological scientist on an Institute of Medicine expert consensus committee (now the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine) led to new evidence standards for decision-making in disease prevention, and a systems-based mixed methods framework (L.E.A.D.) for evidence synthesis and evidence generation to address major public health problems (2008-2010; published in Health Education and Behavior in 2014).  Other notable recognitions include a Fulbright Research Scholar Award (2007-08) for examining gender equity issues in primary schools in selected Bengali speaking regions of India and Bangladesh, an Outstanding Reviewer recognition from the AERA publications committee (2006), a Distinguished Paper Award from the Florida Educational Research Association (1993) for demonstrating the combined utility of Rasch measurement and confirmatory factor analysis mathematical models to examine the dimensionality and construct validity of test-based data (published in the Journal of Outcome Measurement, 1997); and Reviewer Recognitions from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education (2012, 2013) and Studies in Educational Evaluation (2019).

As the Director of AERI, Chatterji has served as the Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on numerous projects supported by nationally competitive research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Stemmler Fund of the National Board of Medical Examiners and elsewhere, as well as, funding from various non-profit and government agencies, most recently from the William T. Grant Foundation and the Spencer Foundation (2021). 

A public intellectual, Chatterji has spoken out frequently against the misuses of tests and test-based information and the adverse social consequences of misused, educational assessments in high stakes practice and policy contexts.  Her policy briefs have been published by the National Education Policy Center where she is a Fellow (see for example, A Consumer’s Guide to Testing under the Every Student Suceeds Act (2019), and via op-eds and blogs in the Education Week (one of which was co-hosted by her center, AERI at TC-Columbia University).  She has served on the Editorial Boards of Educational Researcher at AERA and Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, flagship journals of AERA and the National Council on Measurement in Education, respectively. Between 2014-18, she was the Co-Editor of Quality Assurance in Education, an international evaluation journal in higher education. She continues to serve on various technical advisory boards and as a consultant. She is delighted to be continuing as a member of The Faculty Steering Committee of the Columbia Global Centers, a select group of university-wide multidisciplinary scholar-leaders with an international reach and impact.

Madhabi Chatterji is a frequently invited plenary/keynote speaker and panelist at international forums and national conferences sponsored by governments, non-governmental organizations and major universities. Notable speeches focusing on the major themes in her research, have included the AERA’s Inaugural Session of the Special Interest Group on Mixed Methods Research; an international forum hosted by the World Bank and Pearson, Inc. in New York for international delegates from Indonesia; the Eastern Evaluation Research Society; the Columbia Global Center—Mumbai; the Center for International Exchange of Scholars, United States Embassy (USIS), Calcutta; the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta; Bangladesh’s BRAC University’s Institute of Education and the BRAC Research and Evaluation Division, China’s Institute for Higher Education at Xiamen University; China’s Shanghai Normal University; the Ningbo Polytechnic Institute at Ningbo City, China; Indonesia’s Yogyakarta State University and the Ministry of Education and Culture; the Phillipine Educational Measurement and Evaluation Association; Spain’s Faculty of Education, Departamento de Metodos de Investigacion y Diagnostico en Educacion  and the Doctoral Program of Education at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) in Madrid; and Universidad Autonóma de San Luis Potosi (UASLP), and the Centro Nacional De Evaluación Para La Educación Superior (CENEVAL) in Mexico.

To learn more, please see Madhabi Chatterji's CV here. 

NOTE:  Published as Madhabi Banerji from 1990-2000 and as Madhabi Chatterji from January, 2001-present