Michael T. Nettles

MS 1977, Higher Education
MA 1978, Political Science
PhD 1980, Higher Education
Princeton, N.J.

Michael T. Nettles (’77 MS higher education; ’78 MA political science; ’80 PhD higher education) has devoted 29 years helping improve the educational experience of students. From serving as residence hall director of Wallace and Wilson Halls at Iowa State in 1976 as a young graduate student, to becoming one of the nation’s leading authorities on improving educational assessment, student performance, educational equity and higher education finance policy, Nettles has always put students first. In the process, he has earned the respect and admiration of educators and policy leaders nationwide.

Nettles is currently the vice president of the Policy Evaluation and Research Center at Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey, and its first Edmund W. Gordon Chair for Policy Evaluation and Research. He previously served as an academic affairs analyst and assistant director with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, as vice president for assessment for the University of Tennessee System, as the first executive director of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of the United Negro College Fund, and as professor of education at the University of Michigan.

His research record in educational assessment is unparalleled in scope and level of excellence. He has more than 50 scholarly publications, and his seminal works, the three-volume African American Education Data Book series and Two Decades of Progress, are the most comprehensive books of facts about the educational status and condition of African Americans in the United States ever produced.

Nettles is a national leader in improving educational programs and systems. He chairs the Social Justice Action Committee of the American Educational Research Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Science’s Board on Higher Education and the Workforce, the National Research Council’s Advisory Board of the National Community College Survey of Student Engagement, and the Executive Board of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Education Commission of the States, and, in 1998, he served as the George Washington Carver Scholar at Iowa State.

Nettles received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Tennessee in 1976. He and his wife, Arie, have three children: Ana, Sabin and Aidan.