Thomas Brock
CCRC
Thomas Brock became the director of the Community College Research Center in September 2018, bringing more than 25 years of experience in education and social welfare research to CCRC. He is also a research professor at Teachers College.
From 2013 to 2018, Dr. Brock was the commissioner of the National Center for Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), where he spearheaded a comprehensive research program around improving educational outcomes for students of all ages while focusing more of the center’s work on postsecondary research. He also planned and launched several national research centers and networks dedicated to topics such as college completion, developmental education, and career and technical education. In January 2017, former Education Secretary John King delegated to Dr. Brock the duties of director of IES. He served in the role for more than a year, overseeing IES’s centers on research, evaluation, and statistics and the release of several major reports, including the National Assessment of Education Progress. Prior to his work for the U.S. Department of Education, Dr. Brock spent nearly a decade as the head of the postsecondary education division of MDRC, capping more than 20 years at the independent social policy research organization. He holds a BA in anthropology from Pitzer, an MPA from Columbia University, and a PhD in social welfare from UCLA.