Profile
Dan is Associate Director of the Green Center for the Study of Science and Society and Associate Director of the Texas Schools Project, the Center’s primary research activity. Since September, 2001 he has also held a joint appointment as Assistant Professor of Economics in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. His research investigates the determinants of student academic progress, especially for minority and economically disadvantaged students.
Dan’s primary Green Center responsibility is forming relationships and obtaining data from Texas state agencies, school districts and other potential sources of individual student information, then managing the staff of research assistants who assemble the data into the Texas Schools Microdata Panel (TSMP). These efforts have resulted in complete public education histories for all Texas public school and public college and university students for the past twelve years. In all there are now more than 12 million individual students in the database, many with thousands of variables identifying their education progress and measures of academic skills. TSMP is used by Green Center researchers, research associates from other universities and PhD students to address many important educational issues.
Green Center data gathering and research is funded by grants from private foundations. Dan is the co-principal investigator of a three-year, $1.25 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to study access, application, admission and success of minority students in Texas public colleges and universities. Dan spent much of 2001 working to complete the research funded by the grant, assembling annual cohorts each with more than ¼ million students. Data from more than 500 files from the Texas Education Agency, Higher Education Coordinating Board, SAT, ACT, GED and other sources provided the basis for assessing the effects of ending affirmative action in Texas college admissions and the legislative responses to drops in minority college enrollment. With John Kain, he completed the data analysis and presented the results to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Dan is also the principal investigator for a two year contract with the Fort Worth Independent School District for $225,000 to help the district evaluate the implementation of direct instruction reading programs in 61 schools for 15,000 kindergarten through second grade students and to improve instruction through the efficient dissemination of student assessment data.
Dan teaches microeconomic theory, econometrics, mathematical economics, and the interrelationships between technology and the economy. He participates in numerous economic, policy and education conferences each year to publicize UTD, the Green Center and the Texas Schools Project. Dan has had an active role in recruiting and attracting new faculty to the university.
Prior to joining UTD, Dan spent more than 20 years in the information services industry in a variety of technical and managerial positions. He is actively involved in the Dallas community and has received several awards for community service to homeless families and children.
- Updated: July 26, 2006
