Vi-Nhuan is a principal research scientist in the Education & Child Development department. She has considerable experience researching issues related to mathematics and science reform, educational assessment, postsecondary access and persistence, and early childhood education. Her past projects have included examining the relationship between receipt of a preschool tuition credit and achievement outcomes at kindergarten and beyond, exploring the impact of merit pay on mathematics teachers’ attitudes and instructional practices, and studying the effects of participation in the College Bound readiness program on student test performance and college attendance.  
 
Vi-Nhuan has particular expertise in quantitative analysis of large-scale databases and has published multiple studies that make use of district, state, and national datasets. She is well-versed with advanced statistical approaches, including meta-analysis, propensity weighting, and regression discontinuity designs. Her work can be found in American Educational Research Journal, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Developmental Psychology, The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Journal of Educational Measurement, and Research in Higher Education. She has previously received funding from the Institute of Education Sciences, National Institute of Health, Walton Family Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and Hewlett Foundation. She holds a doctorate degree in psychometrics, a master’s degree in statistics, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology.