Jennifer Shorter is the Director of Quality and Improvement for the National Student Support Accelerator at the Annenberg Institute. She most recently served as a Regional Lead for K-12 for Pennsylvania’s Statewide System for LEA and School Improvement. She provided critical leadership in the development, delivery, and continuous improvement of differentiated statewide services for federally designated schools.
After beginning her career as a high school Spanish and Social Studies teacher in Memphis, Tennessee, Jennifer continued working in spaces to improve outcomes for traditionally underserved student populations and under-resourced communities. She has worked with a myriad of community-based organizations, K-12 districts, the Tennessee & Alabama Departments’ of Education, and post-secondary institutions on issues such as teacher and leader effectiveness, program evaluation, leveraging data to inform systems and policy change, and school reform efforts. Jennifer also completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alabama. She is a proponent of translating research into evidenced-based practice.
Jennifer earned a post-graduate certificate in Financial Management from Cornell. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership (Policy Studies) as well as a master's in Instructional & Curriculum Leadership (Secondary Education) both from the University of Memphis and a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in International Studies from Jackson State University.
