Dr. Sara Haviland is a Senior Measurement Scientist whose research examines the social, policy, organizational, and individual factors that affect education and career pathways. She is particularly interested in how educational interventions and career development can improve individuals’ career trajectories and opportunities for movement into higher socioeconomic statuses. She has served on a variety of grant-funded projects, with funding from state, federal, and foundation sources; her mixed method, collaborative approach is centered in equity, and her work is disseminated to both academic and practitioner audiences. She has experience teaching in both the traditional and online college classroom.
Dr. Haviland is a member of the Skills and Business Excellence unit in ETS Research, and co-director of ETS's foundational research on policy, leading research on higher education admissions. In these roles she examines educational access, including changing admissions requirements and their impact on equity in admissions, and work access, including skill development and demonstration. Other specialties include career and technical education, workforce development, community colleges, noncredit education, labor market alignment, strategies to address skill misalignments, and employer engagement.
Prior to joining ETS in 2019, Dr. Haviland was a senior researcher with the Education and Employment Research Center at Rutgers University. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology (specializing in organizations, occupations, and work, as well as aging and the life course) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011, and a B.A. in social theory and ethics from Oglethorpe University.