Staff

Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation
(785) 864-3537 cete@ku.edu



Neal Kingston
Neal Kingston
Director
(785) 864-9705 nkingsto@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae




Measurement Staff

Hyun-Jeong Cho
Post Doctorate Researcher (Alternate Assessment)
(785) 864-3537 chohj@ku.edu

Hyun-jeong Cho is a post doctoral research associate whose current interests include research, and evaluation of the Kansas Alternate Assessment and Kansas Assessment of Modified Measures.



Patrick Irwin
Psychometrician II (General Assessment)
(785) 864-9698 pirwin@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Patrick is a Psychometrician II with CETE. His primary responsibilities include the development and coordination in support of the Kansas assessment program, serving as the general assessment project manager for the reading, mathematics, science, social studies, and writing assessments.



Robert McKinley
Psychometrician IV (Interim Assessment)
(785) 864-3537 rmckinley@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Robert is a senior research associate with CETE. His primary responsibility is development and implementation of the new Interim Assessment program. In addition, Rob serves as a resource to the other center staff and as a mentor to graduate students.



Vicki Peyton
Vicki Peyton
Psychometrician I (KELPA)
(785) 864-3537 vpeyton@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Vicki is a Research Associate in at CETE and an Assistant Professor in the Psychology and Research in Education Department. She specializes in applied statistics and measurement, confirmatory factor analysis and educational and psychological item analyses. Her primary duties with CETE are working with the Kansas English Language Proficiency Assessment.



Julie Shaftel
Julie Shaftel
Research Associate (KAMM, Alternate Assessment)
(785) 864-3537 jshaftel@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Julie is a former special education teacher with expertise in mild to moderate disabilities. A licensed school psychologist, she has taught in PRE’s School Psychology program for the last ten years. At CETE, she coordinates the development and implementation of the Kansas Alternate Assessment, the Kansas Assessment of Modified Measures, and the use of testing accommodations on these and the general assessments. Research interests include testing and classroom accommodations for diverse student populations, assessment of K-12 classroom behavior, development and measurement of cross-cultural attitudes and skills, and the correspondence between self and observer ratings of high-inference characteristics.



Sylvia Tidwell Scheuring
Senior Research Assistant (Interim Assessment)
(785) 864-3537 sts@ku.edu




Technology Staff

Rebecca Finney
Rebecca Finney
Programmer II (Perl)
(785) 864-3537 rfinney@ku.edu

Rebecca maintains the Perl programs that make the CETE website go. She creates data sets for research and deals with the really challenging phone calls from school districts.



Mark Hoffman
System Administrator
(785) 864-3537 mwhoffman@ku.edu

Mark is the System Administrator of the CETE production, development, and QA computer systems and networks. He also supports the CETE office workstations and printers.



Karthick Palaniswamy
Karthick Palaniswamy
Director of Technology for Research and Development
(785) 864-3537 kpalaniswamy@ku.edu

Manages all aspects of CETE's Technology projects including the hiring, management of technology personal and infrastructure (hardware and software). Manages application design, development and maintenance of all enterprise applications used for Kansas Computerized Assessments (KCA). Works with the Director and Measurement Staff to gather requirements for new and existing applications, prepares IT development project plan and production deployment or release plan.



Mahesh Rajannan
Mahesh Rajannan
Programmer I (Java)
(785) 864-3537 m802r921@ku.edu

Mahesh maintains and updates KCA, TDE and Test Builder. He also manages the job assignments and duties of the technology GRAs and handles issues concerning the production database and web server.



Nicholas Studt
Programmer I (Perl)
(785) 864-3537 nstudt@ku.edu

Nick’s main focus is to facilitate the smooth operation of reporting by maintaining existing applications and developing new applications for use by teachers and state, district, and school administrators. In addition, Nick maintains several of the internal web services used by staff to further our core mission and serves as a backup system administrator when necessary.



Amy Tackkett
Technical Liaison
(785) 864-7092 amytack@ku.edu

Amy manages issues dealing with the Test Builder website and is the liaison between the programming/website staff and the KCA/test engine technical staff. She also serves as the resource person for school districts and answers questions regarding formative testing.




Operational Staff

Ronda Consolver
Ronda Consolver
Assistant to the Director
(785) 864-3537 rcon@ku.edu

Ronda serves as the office manager and main CETE contact when the Director is unavailable and manages the Director’s calendar and scheduling of appointments. She also processes all payroll documents for CETE staff and is the Personnel Related Staff Member for HR issues.



Nora McAfee
Program Assistant
(785) 864-3537 nmcafee@ku.edu

Nora’s duties include answering phone and email questions regarding state assessment issues and CETE website usage. Nora also orders supplies, processes payments for goods and services necessary for the successful completion of CETE’s research goals and initiatives; identifies and submits work orders for facility repairs and maintenance, posts online advertisements for open positions, and performs other miscellaneous duties as they arise.



Lisa McBride
Editor
(785) 864-3537 lmcbride@ku.edu

As the technical editor for CETE, Lisa provides both copyediting and comprehensive editing for a variety of documents including assessments, manuals, research articles, website content, and correspondence. Additionally, she has edited materials for the BAIP (Blending Assessment with Instruction Program). Lisa also handles copyright permissions for the Kansas Assessments.