Our technical team can help you identify and act on challenges you face in education.

Gibson has deep technical talent in key areas – financial, research and evaluation, data analysis, efficiency, technology, surveys, internal audit, organizational analysis, and academic program reviews, among others.  Each member of Gibson’s team  makes professional and personal commitments to our education clients to help them solve problems, be more effective, and find better and more efficient ways of doing things.

Meet our team and learn more about us.

Greg Gibson President

Greg is the founder and President of Gibson Consulting Group and is one of the nation’s leading experts on school district efficiency and management effectiveness. He has over 30 years of experience, and has led over 150 school system efficiency studies for districts ranging from 500 students to over 600,000 students. Greg is the director of the firm’s Management and Organization and Internal Audit Practices, and has directed a wide range of other projects in public education, including information systems selection and implementation, organizational analysis, process re-engineering, data integrity reviews, and program evaluations. Previously, Greg led the Management Consulting Services Practice for the Austin office of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP) – an international accounting and consulting firm. He is a speaker and trainer on school district efficiency and internal auditing at state conferences and conventions for school administrators and board members.

Misti Blankenship Operations Manager

Misti Blankenship is the Operations Manager at Gibson Consulting Group. She joins the organization from the Theater program at Southwestern University with 4 years of office management experience, focused in the tech and startup space. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations at the firm as well as administrative tasks, event planning, and serves as executive assistant to Greg Gibson.

Tami Bohls Proposal Manager

As Proposal Manager, Tami is responsible for leading, planning, and overseeing the timely development and delivery of high-quality responses to competitive and non-competitive business opportunities. She is responsible for all business development initiatives relating to marketing, lead generation, and business development, and she serves as copy editor for all Gibson materials. Prior to taking on the role of Proposal Manager, Tami was the Operations Coordinator and Executive Assistant at Gibson. She has a BA in Communications from the University of Arkansas and has served in administrative support roles for over 15 years.

Dr. Julie Borchlewicz Consultant

Dr. Julie Borchlewicz is a Consultant who has over 10 years of experience in special education and educational research. Julie holds a bachelor’s in special education from Calvin University, a master’s in urban education from Union University, and a graduate certificate in Educational Research Methodology and Ph.D. in Disability Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Julie also has experience working as an elementary special education teacher, research assistant in an assistive technology unit, and a graduate-level professor in education and special education coursework. Previously, Julie worked for the state of Illinois as a special education monitor and for the state of Michigan as a special education state complaint investigator. Julie is passionate about special education and the power of using education data to inform practice.

Dr. Samantha Bos Research Associate

Dr. Samantha Bos, a Research Associate at Gibson, has ten years of experience within the field of special education, including as a teacher, instructional coach, and researcher. She earned her doctorate degree in Special Education from The University of Texas at Austin, with a focus on Learning Disabilities and Behavioral Disorders. While at The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Bos worked as a research assistant on Project STAIR, an OSEP-funded project supporting teachers in implementing data decision-making practices. Working with middle school special education teachers, Dr. Bos developed materials and resources to support students with mathematical difficulties develop algebraic readiness skills. She has supported statewide and local projects supporting teachers in implementing evidence-based practices, including Project TIER, a statewide initiative designed to ensure the implementation of the multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) in every school in Texas. Dr. Bos has been involved in a number of projects that utilize random control trial designs, mixed methodological designs, and both quantitative and qualitative survey collections. In addition to her research, Dr. Bos has taught undergraduate- and graduate-level courses at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, and William and Mary.

Stephanie Davis Consultant

Stephanie is a Consultant at Gibson supporting our internal audit and efficiency practice areas. Prior to her time at Gibson, Stephanie worked as an internal auditor for a year with Lennar and as an external auditor for three years with RSM in New Bern, NC. Stephanie is a Certified Public Accountant who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management & Society from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

 

 

Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick Research Scientist

Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick is a Quantitative Research Scientist at Gibson who has been working with data on students, teachers, families, and schools for seven years. He specializes in compiling, cleaning, manipulating, and analyzing education-related data in order to improve the educational opportunity available to all students. He is particularly interested in why students develop favorable (or unfavorable) feelings about math and STEM more broadly, and how this can promote or limit their learning. Before joining Gibson, Dr. Fitzpatrick earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. While there, he published his research in Educational Researcher and Sociology of Education, and he also taught classes in undergraduate and graduate statistics. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Fitzpatrick was a middle school math teacher in southern Louisiana.

Beth Frank Director of Operations

Beth is responsible for conducting all business operations within the firm, including accounting, billing, human resources, insurance, office management and contract management. She has been with Gibson for 15 years, and as part of the leadership team she is involved in every major business decision the firm makes.

Dr. Gleb Furman Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Gleb Furman is a Quantitative Research Scientist at Gibson, specializing in advanced statistical analysis for causal inference. While earning his PhD in Educational Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Furman’s work focused on developing methods to improve the generalizability of intervention effectiveness research. Prior to joining Gibson, Dr. Furman was the Lead Evaluator at The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at The University of Texas at Austin, where he conducted evaluations for state and local education agencies. He has also led or supported the evaluation of federally funded technical assistance and dissemination centers such as the National Center on Intensive Intervention (NCII), the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI), National Deaf Center (NDC), and several others. Dr. Furman is an expert in using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to conduct evaluations in educational settings. His experience and knowledge allow him to provide clients with insightful recommendations to drive successful outcomes.

Will Hardaway Senior Consultant

Will has over 10 years of experience as a teacher and school administrator. He began his career in education as a classroom teacher with Teach for America in the Mississippi Delta, teaching ELA and Art at the middle school level. He has also served as a school administrator in districts in New York City and Texas, overseeing operational areas such as transportation, food services, and student information systems. At Gibson, Will’s experience includes conducting a risk assessment audit for a 40,000-student district and an audit of a 55,000-student district’s human resources department. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from Trinity University and a Masters of Business Administration from Emory University.

Danial Hoepfner Research and Evaluation Director

Danial has over six years of research experience, including a considerable background in complex quantitative data analysis. His experience includes the gathering, cleaning, and merging of datasets, as well as working with large, pooled cross-sectional datasets. At Gibson, he has recently conducted analytic work for projects, including surveys for measuring and reporting Indicator 8 for the Office of Special Education Programs for New Hampshire and Texas, studies of Pre-Kindergarten Participation and Kindergarten Readiness in New Mexico for the Southwest Regional Education Laboratory, and evaluations of the College Completion Project for AVID Center and of the AVID program for Lee County Schools in North Carolina.

Prior to joining Gibson, Danial worked as a Research and Teaching Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, where he regularly presented complex methodological and theoretical material to non-experts. His work there focused on analyzing theoretical structures in survey data. He has also spent time volunteering for an international educational organization. Danial holds a Master of Science from the University of Utah and is working on his dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh to earn his PhD in Political Science with emphases on Methods, Comparative Politics, and International Relations. He has received extensive graduate training in research design and econometrics, including through additional econometric training at the University of Michigan.

Kent Ingram, CPA Consulting Director

Kent is a Consulting Director at Gibson supporting our internal audit and efficiency practice areas. His experience includes the development of an efficiency report card for a 70,000-student district in Florida, and conducting an asset and risk management audit and a nutrition services audit for a 40,000-student district in Texas. Prior to his time at Gibson, Kent worked as an external auditor for four years, with Deloitte and Touche in Dallas, Texas and PricewaterhouseCoopers in London, United Kingdom. During that time, he conducted and managed audit projects, working primarily with large, publicly traded companies. Kent is a Certified Public Accountant who holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business and Accounting from Texas Tech University and a Masters in Professional Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Stacia Long Research Associate

Dr. Stacia Long is a Research Associate at Gibson with seven years of experience in qualitative education research. Before joining Gibson, Dr. Long completed her Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education and a Certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies at the University of Georgia. As a graduate student, Dr. Long served as the editor of and conference co-chair for the Journal of Language and Literacy Education, chaired the English Language Arts Teacher Educators – Graduate Strand, taught in the teacher education programs at UGA and the University of North Texas, and published book chapters and peer-reviewed articles. Before earning her Ph.D., Dr. Long was a high school English teacher in Houston and Del Valle, a member of the Heart of Texas Writing Project, and graduated with an MEd in Language and Literacy Education from The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Cathy Malerba Research and Evaluation Executive Director

As the Executive Director for Research and Evaluation, Dr. Cathy Malerba leads the research and evaluation team and directs many of Gibson’s large-scale projects. With nearly 20 years of applied research and evaluation experience in the public education sector, Dr. Malerba has designed and led a wide range of evaluation projects with topics ranging from prekindergarten to college access programs, out-of-school time programs, and district technology initiatives. As a former district administrator, she developed a deep understanding of state and federal assessment and accountability requirements, and of the ways in which campus and district administrators use data to guide their decision-making. She has led district strategic planning efforts and collaborated with board members and administrators to set and monitor student outcome goals. Dr. Malerba earned her doctorate in Human Development and Family Sciences from The University of Texas at Austin.

Keri Munkwitz Consulting Director

With over 20 years of public education consulting experience, Keri has worked with both urban and suburban school systems across the country on many different types of engagements. She has managed numerous performance audits and operational reviews. She has conducted organizational analyses, per pupil spending analyses, school-level resource use analyses, process mapping and reengineering, and has worked as part of a Project Management Office (PMO) on a multi-agency ERP implementation. Her work has primarily focused on helping school systems to identify opportunities for reallocating resources in order to better ensure their alignment with district priorities.

Keri holds a Master in Business Administration, with a concentration in Finance, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and earned her undergraduate degree from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. Prior to Gibson, Keri worked for a not-for-profit education consulting firm, focusing exclusively on assisting urban school systems to analyze spending patterns, in order to rethink how they can better organize their resources for improved efficiency and effectiveness. Keri also worked for KPMG Consulting (later BearingPoint) as a manager in their Public Education Practice for many years.

Dr. David Osman Research and Evaluation Director

Dr. David Osman has 15 years of experience in education, including serving as a teacher, instructional coach, and educational consultant. Being an applied educational researcher has afforded him the opportunity to explore a variety of topics at Gibson and he is most interested in exploring problems which result in positive changes in students’ lives – especially students who have been marginalized.

Before coming to Gibson, Dr. Osman was the Director of Research and Evaluation in Round Rock Independent School District, where he directed a team of evaluators in conducting large-scale program evaluations, supporting educators’ data use, and in building stakeholders’ evaluation capacity. Prior to this, Dr. Osman worked at the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk where he served as a literacy consultant for public school districts across Texas, providing district- and school-level guidance and analyzing literacy data.

Dr. Osman earned his doctorate degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in Human Development, Culture, and Learning Sciences. His dissertation focused on the relationship between teachers’ motivational and emotional experiences during professional development and implementation. He also possesses master’s degrees in Quantitative Methods (from UT-Austin) and Curriculum and Instruction (from Texas State-San Marcos). His research has been published in journals such as Teachers and Teacher Education, Educational Psychology Review, Exceptional Children, and The Journal of Social Studies Research. He is an active conference presenter at the American Evaluation Association (AEA) and the American Education Research Association (AERA), and a leader in the PreK-12 Education Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG) for AEA.

Ali Taylan Chief Information Officer

Ali is the Chief Information Officer at Gibson and has over 17 years of experience in technology management practices, data visualization, and programming. He leads our Data Visualization Practice Area, and is our lead technology consultant on efficiency studies and software selection. He develops and implements business intelligence solutions that support educational decisions. These solutions allow users, including administrators and board members, to more easily grasp vast amounts of information through graphics-based presentation and drill-down capabilities. Ali has developed academic (e.g., student performance) and administrative (e.g., budget analysis and department efficiency) performance measurement systems for school districts.

Ali also conducts technology department performance audits, and helps school districts select application software to support more efficient operations. He supports virtually every other practice area in the firm, generating data visualizations for survey research results, conducting data analytics to support internal audit, and integrating multiple data sets on efficiency studies.

Dr. Jayce Warner Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Jayce Warner is an education researcher and applied statistician with extensive experience assessing teacher development, student learning, and educational equity. Dr. Warner has published original research in numerous education research journals and conducted program evaluations for federal, state, and local education agencies.

Prior to joining Gibson, Dr. Warner led the research team for the educational division of the Texas Advanced Computing Center at UT Austin where he conducted multiple large scale studies examining gender and racial equity issues in secondary and postsecondary computing education. He also co-led efforts of an NSF-funded initiative to establish common metrics for measuring and monitoring equity in computing education across numerous U.S. states. In this work, he provided guidance and support to state education agencies in their efforts to collect, analyze, and report K-12 education data.

Dr. Warner earned his doctorate degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation, which examined the relationship between early language learning and later literacy achievement, won the Graduate Student Award for Literacy Research Excellence from the American Educational Research Association special interest group on research in reading and literacy. His Master’s degree studies focused on teacher sensemaking in professional development settings.