FEATURED SPEAKER

Valerie J. Calderon, Ph.D.

Sr. Education Research Consultant, Gallup

Dr. Calderon is a consultant and researcher with Gallup. Calderon provides strategic and tactical consulting for internal and client teams in research project execution. She consults education and youth development non-profits and specializes in organizational improvement through engagement measurement and strategic action planning.

Calderon directs consulting and operations for the Gallup Student Poll. Measuring engagement, hope, entrepreneurial aspiration, and career/financial literacy of students in grades five through twelve, the Gallup Student Poll provides America’s schools with positive leading indicators with links to educational outcomes and student success. Nearly 4 million surveys have been collected since the launch of the Poll in 2009.

Calderon designs and manages research for K-16 education polling efforts. She supports survey research on youth financial literacy and entrepreneurship, annually publishing results of the Gallup-HOPE Index on economic energy and youth entrepreneurship. Calderon has published chapters and articles for peer reviewed and popular web sites and journals and Gallup.com. She recently co-authored, “Gallup Student Poll: Measuring and Promoting what’s Right with Students,” published in Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Health, Schools, Work, and Society, Psychology Press, New York, 2011.

Dr. Calderon has over fifteen years of experience working with youth and families as a minister, teacher, and coach. She has volunteered to serve populations in need for short-term projects in the U.S., Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Colombia. She is an elected member of the Bennington Public Schools Board of Education, serves on the board of directors for a local chapter of TeamMates Mentoring Program, a school-based mentoring organization, and herself serves as a youth mentor.

Valerie earned a B.A. from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She earned a Master of Divinity and Ph.D. from Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX.