Mari Strand Cary

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(864) 287-8063 Ext. 712

Dr. Mari Strand Cary (she/her) is a Senior Research Specialist with EC PRISM (Early Childhood Precision, Innovation, and Shared Management). In this capacity, she empowers organizations to identify what works about their programs, for whom and under what contexts. To improve programs and policies supporting early childhood development, Mari grounds her work in evidence-based, qualitative and quantitative evaluation approaches and involves a wide array of stakeholders. She collaborates with early childhood care and service providers, educators, community members and philanthropic funders.

Mari is also a Senior Research Associate at the Center on Teaching and Learning at the University of Oregon. There, she directs multi-million-dollar federal development and evaluation projects and regular speaks to – and writes for – academic and practitioner audiences. Most recently, in collaboration with industry professionals, teachers, and her design and evaluation research team, Mari developed the KinderTEK^® iPad early math program and evaluated its effectiveness for preschool through grade 3 students, their teachers and parents. The U.S. Department of Education-funded KinderTEK program has been used by thousands of students across the nation.

Mari serves as a board member of Kidsports, a non-profit, youth-sports organization, as well as Lane STEM (an initiative of Connected Lane County), both in Eugene, Oregon. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, received her PhD and MA in Child Psychology from the University of Minnesota and received her BS in Biology from the University of Puget Sound.