Dean Nafziger, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer

Donald Barfield, A.B.D.
President

Kathleen Barfield, MBA
Chief Administrative Officer/Chief Information Officer

Kristin Mitchell, M.A.
Vice President, Emerging Practices

Gail Ribalta, MIM
Senior Vice President, Marketing

Mark McNiel, MBA
Vice President, Program Operations


Dean Nafziger, Ph.D. – Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Dean Nafziger is a founding partner and CEO of Edvance Research Inc. As CEO, he provides the overall strategic vision and direction for the company and builds relationships with institutions, stakeholders and customers.

Dr. Nafziger has been involved in various aspects of public education for more than three decades, starting as a high school mathematics teacher in the Boise, Idaho, public schools, and later serving in leadership positions at some of the nation’s most respected education companies and institutions.

He is a nationally recognized leader and skilled executive, educator and researcher. Based on his training and research experiences, Dr. Nafziger has a deep understanding of the rationale behind scientifically valid research, and the analytical skills required to conduct rigorous, high-quality research studies, including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, and analyses using large data sets.

His broad experience gives him the insight and ability to work confidently with researchers, policy makers and business executives, as well as the expertise that produces effective strategies and superior solutions.

Prior to joining Edvance Research, Dr. Nafziger was associated with the Houston-based American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC), a member-based nonprofit providing benchmarking and best practice research in all industries. Dr. Nafziger established the organization’s education line of business.

Prior to his association with APQC, Dr. Nafziger was president of Harcourt Educational Measurement, the education division of test publisher Harcourt Assessment. At Harcourt, Dr. Nafziger supervised the launch of a new, innovative edition of the company’s flagship norm-referenced achievement test, as well as new assessments for reading and English language proficiency that met the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. He guided the management of contracts with 30 state departments of education, and oversaw 1,000 full-time and 1,500 temporary staff in specialized functions, including catalog product sales, marketing, customer support, psychometrics, sampling and statistics, test development, new product development, program management and operational logistics.

Dr. Nafziger also held leadership positions at Sylvan Learning Systems, where he launched new programs for teacher certification. While an executive Educational Testing Service (ETS), he was responsible for testing programs in 180 countries and launched new products for test preparation and teacher training, as well as career and educational guidance.

Dr. Nafziger’s career also includes research positions at the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Social Organization of Schools, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) and the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD).

Dr. Nafziger was also chief executive officer of Far West Laboratory. He was a founder and the developer of a successor company known as WestEd. During his 10 years at WestEd, he led the Company's significant growth and set the foundations to provide leading educational services to government agencies, businesses and foundations that continue today.

Dr. Nafziger has published extensively in professional journals, such as the Journal of Vocational Behavior and the Journal of Applied Psychology. In addition, Dr. Nafziger has served on boards and held officer positions for numerous professional organizations, and is frequently invited to speak at conferences and symposia.

Dr. Nafziger earned a Ph.D. in educational administration and research at New Mexico State University. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho, and has attended advanced management courses at Harvard Business School.

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Donald Barfield, A.B.D. – President

Don Barfield is a founding partner of Edvance Research, Inc. As president, he is responsible the overall operations of the company. He has more than 20 years of executive leadership in public, non-profit and for-profit educational organizations, and his guidance has resulted in the successful delivery of major research and development initiatives.

Prior to joining Edvance Research, Barfield was an executive at test publisher Harcourt Assessment, first as vice president of business development and sales. In that position Barfield unified the company’s education and clinical sales organizations and refocused the sales force on customer needs to provide integrated customer solutions. As the company’s vice president of educational products, Barfield oversaw all development activities, including research, content development, psychometrics and editorial, related to a broad range of education assessments, including Web-based summative and formative achievement assessments, as well as ability, diagnostic and language proficiency tests.

Barfield spent a large portion of his career at Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, and was a founding manager of its successor company, WestEd. As WestEd’s deputy director and chief development officer, Barfield focused on institutional development while also playing a substantial role in the organization’s mathematics and science program areas, evaluation research, and the expansion of the human development program. Under Barfield’s leadership, the organization enjoyed rapid and sustained growth.

Barfield has also served as an assistant superintendent in the San Francisco Unified School District with responsibility for all district-level research, planning, assessment, evaluation and information processing. As the District’s director of research testing and evaluation, Barfield coordinated all research and evaluation activities for 120 schools and developed management strategies to improve instructional programs and increase student achievement.

At various points in his career Barfield has also been an independent consultant, specializing in educational program evaluation; teacher and administrator professional development; student, adult and organizational learning; student performance in critical thinking skills and language acquisition; management information system design and implementation; and the assessment and development of desegregation systems.

As a graduate student at Harvard University, Barfield was an instructor in undergraduate sociology courses, as well as a graduate instructor in statistical methods, and he also supervised undergraduate research projects and directed research on race relations.

Barfield has published numerous papers, such as Longitudinal Analysis of Student and School Performance: St. Louis Public Schools, 1989 – 1994. He is a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and is considered an expert on school desegregation.

Barfield participated in one of the first efforts to establish principles for good research science in education as a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Scientific Principles in Educational Research Committee, which published the 2002 report, Scientific Research in Education. Barfield also participated in the California Department of Education’s Academic Performance Index (API) Technical Design Group, and he serves on the board of directors of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, which focuses on all aspects of science research.

As Associate Laboratory Director for REL Southwest, Barfield is responsible for all research within REL Southwest. He assures that all laboratory work is coordinated and completed on time and reflects the highest level of quality, consistent with the standards developed by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC).

Barfield holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology with honors from the University of California at Riverside, as well as a master’s degree in sociology from Harvard University. He has also completed all of the coursework required for a doctorate in sociology and urban planning at Harvard.

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Kathleen Barfield, MBA – Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Information Officer

Kathleen Barfield is a founding partner of Edvance Research, Inc. and oversees two key functions. As Chief Administrative Officer she oversees the company’s administrative functions, including finance, human resources, contract administration, legal affairs and information technology.  As Chief Information Officer she leads the implementation of innovative solutions to scale high-quality products and services for educators at all levels.  

Barfield was a leading pioneer in the early 1990s movement to develop standards for sharing student information between educational institutions using early Internet protocols, and during this period she chaired the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) task force on electronic record transfer. She also managed several large-scale development efforts to build student data management systems, and developed solutions for district and state reporting needs.

Barfield has provided technology leadership for organizations such as the California Department of Education, WestEd, Oracle Corporation, and Harcourt Assessment, and she has also consulted with student information system vendors and education agencies on instructional and administrative technology solutions.

At Harcourt, Barfield was responsible for infusing innovation into reporting products and she was a core team member of a company-wide project to identify and develop innovative business solutions. As lead technology manager, she provided strategic direction for the development of the company’s eTesting platform.

Barfield was instrumental in developing the California School Information Services (CSIS) program in the early 1990s that provided accountability reporting on student-level information. She worked with the NCES, institutions of higher education, and school districts to develop and implement a student transcript program for all students, as well as a statewide system for migrant education reporting.

Through her work with Oracle and local school districts, she helped districts implement data warehousing solutions to meet their needs for data-driven reporting solutions.

Barfield has served on a number of boards and task forces, including the board of the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), the California Educational Data Processing Association, the Telecommunications Task Force of the California Superintendents’ Educational Services Association, and the Information Management Advisory Council of the California Department of Education.

Barfield won a U.S. Department of Education Award in 1992 and the Sustained Superior Accomplishment Award from the California Department of Education in 1988.

She is the author of numerous papers and presentations, including The Future of eTesting and Effective Technology Integration: Planning for Results. She also served as executive producer for Technology Planning: Putting the Pieces Together, a video created for a national conference and distributed in the WestEd region.

As Chief Information Officer for REL Southwest, Barfield works closely with the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and districts and schools within the region to incorporate leading edge technology that facilitates research studies, as well as the delivery of research results to constituents.  

Barfield earned a bachelor’s degree in international studies from the University of the Pacific at Stockton, Calif., and a master’s degree in business administration from California State University at Sacramento.  She also studied Japanese at Stanford University’s Graduate Language Program, and completed certification at the California School Leadership Academy.

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Kristin Mitchell, M.A. – Vice President, Emerging Practices

Kristin Mitchell is a founding partner of Edvance Research, Inc. and serves as vice president for emerging practices. In this position she is responsible for following trends in education, and identifying and keeping educators informed about new evidence-based programs and practices that show promising results. Mitchell is a recognized leader in the areas of process and quality improvement, strategic planning and performance measurement.

Due to her extensive experience helping educators identify process and quality improvement practices, Mitchell is routinely approached by national organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), to provide leadership and guidance for developing project frameworks and improvement tools.  

Mitchell was instrumental in creating an innovation guidebook series for OII and was the technical lead for three of those publications: Creating Strong District School Choice Programs; Creating Successful Magnet Schools Programs; and Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification.  

Building upon the work of the innovation guides on public School Choice and magnet programs, Mitchell designed a School Choice symposium funded by OII. The symposium brought district and state practitioners together with local sites that were featured in the guides. These meetings gave the group first-hand knowledge about implementing and expanding educational options for parents and students. 

Following her success with the guides and the choice symposium, Mitchell collaborated with OII to create www.BuildingChoice.org, an interactive online toolkit that provides practical information to districts for implementing and expanding their public school choice offerings, with the aim of improving student achievement.

Mitchell is currently leading the effort to create another series of innovation guides for the U.S. Department of Education. This series will feature distance-learning programs that are expanding opportunities for advanced coursework and evaluations of online learning initiatives.

Prior to joining Edvance Research, Mitchell was an integral part of the Education Initiative with the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC). At APQC she served as a program manager for the Baldrige in Education Initiative, a national effort bringing excellence and equity to education through the implementation of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria and other quality tools. She also oversaw two significant collaborative benchmarking studies that examined best practices in teacher preparation programs and improving procurement processes for statewide assessments.  

In addition to her role as Edvance Research’s vice president of emerging practices, Mitchell is also the director of technical assistance for REL Southwest. As head of this unit, her focus is to help states and education organizations in the laboratory’s five-state region build capacity for making evidence-based decisions. Mitchell holds a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in management, and a master's degree in communication studies, both from Texas Tech University.

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Gail Ribalta, MIM – Senior Vice President, Marketing

Gail Ribalta is a founding partner of Edvance Research.  She is a seasoned senior marketing executive with a successful track record in business and the business of education, including executive positions at Texas Instruments, Harcourt Assessment, Dearfoams and Mattel Toys.  With more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of global consumer marketing, research, sales and business development, as well as finance and international business management, Ribalta has been recognized as an innovative problem solver with proven solutions.

Ribalta’s extensive knowledge of market research and analysis has been a major strength in communicating and incorporating research findings into strategic assessment and practical applications that have led to the successful launch or repositioning of a broad range of products, including agricultural and construction equipment, clothing, food and many lines of consumer goods.

She has spent more than half of her career working for the benefit of children and in the field of children’s educational toys.  As leader of the Educational Products Division at Texas Instruments, Ribalta oversaw the development of the Speak and Spell line of products and at Mattel worked on over 30 other toy brands designed to promote children’s education and development.

At Harcourt Assessment, Ribalta joined the company as the first Vice President of Marketing in its history and unified the educational and clinical marketing departments into a single strategic marketing group and expanded the scope of the unit by establishing market research and public relations functions.  As part of her focus on providing customers with added value, she led the creation of two new company magazines that delivered cutting-edge research reports directly to Harcourt’s education and clinical customers. 

A major proponent of community outreach, Ribalta has been instrumental in providing support for a number of community organizations, including the San Antonio Education Partnership, the San Antonio Children’s Shelter, the San Antonio Food Bank, the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and Communities in Schools.

Ribalta holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Rutgers University, and a master’s degree in international management, (international marketing and international finance) from Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management.  She serves as an adjunct instructor for the MBA program at Norwich University in Northfield, VT, and is on the Advisory Council for the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

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Mark McNiel, MBA – Vice President, Program Operations

Mark McNiel is a founding partner of Edvance Research, Inc. He brings vast program management experience and leadership skills to the company, having led successful initiatives in the energy, technology and education industries, including positions at Fina Oil and Chemical, The Everest Group, Compaq Computer and Harcourt Assessment.  

McNiel has garnered accolades for his expertise in creating project monitoring systems, including relational database structures, query models and innovative report formats, all of which are crucial to effective program management.  He has created numerous project management systems designed to plan, monitor and control the most fundamental and vital aspects of a project, such as time (schedule), cost (budget) and performance (specifications).

McNiel’s solid technical skills, strong problem solving orientation and sound political astuteness have earned him high credibility and an outstanding reputation among internal and external clients.

Starting at Fina Oil and Chemical Company, where he was recruited into a fast-track management training program, McNiel was exposed to multiple aspects of business management, including finance, advertising, market analysis, operations and distribution. He negotiated oil and gas open market trades and managed the conversion of credit card processing from paper to electronic transactions.

At Everest Group, a Dallas-based software venture, McNiel managed consulting projects for high-profile clients such as Texaco, EDS and Shell Oil. Following this success, McNiel became director of marketing and business consulting for Tensor Information Systems, where he grew revenue 60 percent and landed the company on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing private companies in the United States.

Based on his success at Tensor, McNiel was recruited to join Compaq Computer Corporation, where he held several key positions managing technology sales proposals and winning multi-million dollar contracts for this Fortune 100 company.

McNiel left Compaq to join Harcourt Assessment, where he directed departments responsible for business strategy formulation, tactical planning, contract pricing, proposal development, competitive intelligence and sales force automation.

In his role as Director of REL Program Coordination, McNiel will lead the project management of all laboratory research to ensure that studies are completed in accordance with schedules and within budget. Program Coordination serves as the liaison with all laboratory partners and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). 

McNiel holds a bachelor’s of business administration degree in marketing from Angelo State University at San Angelo, Texas, and an MBA in management from the University of Houston.

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