David Bamat

David Bamat is a senior researcher in the Education Statistics program at AIR. Dr. Bamat’s primary responsibilities include leading and supporting NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) research projects. His work focuses on studying and leveraging statistical methods to overcome small sample limitations in large-scale assessment (LSA) research. It also focuses on using LSA data to identify schools and school systems that consistently best support the learning and achievement of underserved groups of students. 

Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Bamat was a lecturer in the Education Policy department at the University of Pennsylvania (2021–22), a senior research associate at Research for Action (2021–22), and a research associate at Education Development Center (2013–21). Before turning to a career in research, he taught Spanish and French in middle school and high school (2009–12).

Dr. Bamat earned his Ph.D. from Boston College’s Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment program, where he was awarded the program’s 2021 George Madaus Research Award for his dissertation on methods for overcoming small sample limitations in the estimation of subgroup performance on NAEP. He is a What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) certified reviewer in group design standards and holds a micro-credential in data science.