Rate My Professor Mei Kuin Lai

Mei Kuin Lai is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and Director of Te Pūtahi Whakatairanga Hapori Ako Angitu, formerly the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. She completed her doctorate at the University of Auckland. Her research centres on data use in education, professional learning communities, and schooling improvement, with a particular emphasis on interventions to accelerate reading comprehension and achievement for culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Lai has co-authored and edited key publications including Practitioner Research for Educators: A Guide to Improving Classrooms and Schools (2005, with Viviane Robinson) and Data-based Decision Making in Education: Challenges and Opportunities (2012, with Kim Schildkamp and Lorna Earl). She has led or contributed to numerous studies demonstrating the impact of data-informed professional development on student outcomes, including sustained gains in literacy achievement in New Zealand schools. In her current leadership role, she oversees research initiatives addressing equity in education, including work on STEM participation for Māori and Pasifika students.

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