Adena Klem, PHD

As Planning Year Director, Adena supervises and supports all of IRRE’s work with schools as they form small learning communities. She brings her deep knowledge of what it takes to support First Things First implementation, as well as her ability to listen and customize approaches to tasks that range from choosing themes for SLCs and rethinking instructional offerings to the logistics of scheduling and reporting data. With her roots firmly in research, Adena has published on high-quality relationships among students and faculty in First Things First schools and districts. Her research has also focused on the settings in which students learn and the best means for assessing these settings’ efficacy. Adena’s doctorate in social psychology and master’s in experimental social psychology are both from Columbia University.