Michael Wagner is a research director in the Center for Global Assessment in the Research & Development division at ETS. He received his M.S. in computer science from the University of Iowa in 1984.
His work at ETS has been focused on applying new technologies to assessment development and delivery. With Doug Forer, he developed the C3 Web Based Test Delivery System, designed to support rapid development and integration of new item types, test designs and scoring technologies. Recently, Wagner has been working on a number of projects. He was the technology architect for Cycle 2 of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) at ETS. He was also the technology coordinator for the 2022 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) at ETS and was responsible for all aspects of the software development. He was the system architect and technical lead for iSkills™, ETS’s ICT Literacy Assessment. Additionally, he has worked on NAEP Technology-Based Assessments and the On The Fly Item Delivery project. He was the recipient of the William VanHassel Research Technology Award at ETS in 2003.
Before coming to ETS, he was a software engineer and research scientist at Siemens Corporate Research in Princeton, where he focused on software engineering tools, particularly configuration management systems and source code management systems. Previous to that, he was a member of the systems division of Xerox, where he was responsible for compiler and programming language tools for internal Xerox development of the Star workstations.