She has more than 16 years of experience advising school districts and state clients on education equity and quality issues, leading and managing projects for large-scale contracts and grants, and overseeing education policy and technical assistance for organization-wide projects. 

As vice president of Education & Child Development at NORC, Alicia leads strategy development and implementation of NORC’s growing portfolio of evaluation and technical assistance work from federal agencies.  

Alicia is a trusted advisor to state, federal, and local education officials on key initiatives. She joins NORC from AIR, where she was managing director and deputy director of the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest, a research center funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. Before that, she was project director for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Statistics, Website, and Training project, which assisted IES in methodological discussions, training, and dissemination, and helped facilitate deliberations about the WWC Standards and Procedures across all WWC contracts. 

Among her notable achievements, Alicia co-directed the State Support Network, a technical assistance contract funded by the U.S. Department of Education. She supported the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act in all states by providing a variety of technical assistance opportunities to state education agencies and school districts, including communities of practice, peer-to-peer exchanges, and individualized technical assistance. 

Alicia also directed the Midwest Comprehensive Center, a technical assistance center funded by the U.S. Department of Education, managing a core staff of 26 to build the capacity of state education agencies in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to design, sustain, and implement reforms that support student success. In addition, Alicia was deputy director of REL Midwest and director of a network for school improvement in Long Beach Unified School District, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that focused on using continuous improvement cycles to improve outcomes for students who are Black, Latino, and from low socioeconomic backgrounds.