Michael Russell is a professor in the Department of Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. He received his doctorate degree in Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation from Boston College in 1998. His scholarship has focused on validity theory; innovative uses of computer-based technologies, applications of Universal Design to enhance educational testing and assessment, large-scale assessment program design, and, most recently, race and quantitative methodology. He has authored two books on assessment, Classroom Assessment: Concepts and Applications and Technology and Assessment: The Tale of Two Interpretations, co-authored a third book, The Paradoxes of High-Stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society, and co-edited Assessing Students in the Margins: Challenges, Strategies and Techniques. Through his work on accessible assessment he co-developed NimbleTools, the first universally designed digital test delivery platform, and co-created the Accessible Portable Item Protocol (APIP) Standards which are used world-wide for the development of digital test content. Michael founded and was Chief Editor of the Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment and established and directed the Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative. He currently serves on the Technical Advisory Committees for several state assessment and accountability programs.

Over the past five years, Michael’s research focus has shifted from advancing digital assessment practices to addressing racism and white supremacy in educational measurement. His current research examines the use of deficit language in the presentation and discussion of findings from quantitative analyses, intersectionality as a lens for examining item and test bias, incorporating a social justice lens into test validity theory, “measuring”/locating understanding of race, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy, tracing the influences of the White Racial Frame on educational measurement methodology. He also leads a collaborative project to redesign graduate research and measurement training programs to better prepare future scholars to engage in anti-racist, decolonized research.