Working Between Worlds

Most facilitators work within single sectors.

Most evaluators serve only academic clients.

Most education consultants focus on either research or practice.

I move between these worlds because that's where the most important work happens and where standard approaches fail.

The Academic-Practitioner Gap: Standard approaches fail at the intersection where Researchers design without practitioner input, producing unusable tools - Practitioners lack access to research that could inform their work - Both groups struggle to collaborate due to unexamined expertise hierarchies - RET/REU programs achieve surface-level exchange without genuine co-production - Communities are "consulted" but their knowledge isn't integrated into research design. How I bridge this: I move between these worlds effectively because I have credibility in both: - Academic credentials (Ph.D., AAAS Fellow, NSF Einstein Fellow, published researcher) - 30 years practitioner experience (teacher, department chair, NESTA president) - Methodological expertise in facilitation and collaborative capacity building - Personal commitment to examining the hierarchies that privilege research over practice This dual positioning allows me to: - Challenge researchers to value practitioner expertise without triggering defensiveness - Help practitioners access research knowledge without feeling "talked down to" - Redesign partnership structures to create genuine reciprocity - Facilitate difficult conversations about power and expertise that others can't navigate. Who benefits? PIs wanting authentic broader impacts, not performative outreach - Practitioners seeking research partnerships that respect their expertise - Organizations needing to integrate academic and local knowledge - Funders wanting to support genuine research-practice integration - Communities tired of being "studied" rather than being genuine partners

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