Jamie M. Carroll Named New Managing Director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans

November 18, 2025

Jamie M. Carroll has been named the new Managing Director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, and Founder Douglas Harris will continue his involvement as a Senior Advisor.

The Edu­ca­tion Research Alliance for New Orleans (ERA) is excit­ed to announce that Jamie M. Car­roll will be our new Man­ag­ing Direc­tor. She will con­tin­ue work­ing close­ly with Dou­glas Har­ris, ERA’s Founder, who will stay active as a Senior Advi­sor mov­ing forward. 

Jamie orig­i­nal­ly came to New Orleans to serve as a teacher over 15 years ago. She left the class­room to pur­sue edu­ca­tion research, first at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Orleans and then at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin, where she earned her PhD in Soci­ol­o­gy. Three years ago, Jamie joined the ERA team and has grad­u­al­ly tak­en over respon­si­bil­i­ty for research at the cen­ter, includ­ing our City­wide Youth Sur­vey, board research projects, and pro­gram­ming on the 20^th anniver­sary of Hur­ri­cane Katrina. 

“It’s been an hon­or to return to the school sys­tem where I start­ed my pas­sion for edu­ca­tion, says Jamie. ​“I’m excit­ed to expand my role and work with our board and part­ners to inves­ti­gate issues fac­ing the New Orleans com­mu­ni­ty, inform deci­sions of local lead­ers, and help improve school­ing expe­ri­ences for the city’s children.” 

Doug, who is also pro­fes­sor and chair of eco­nom­ics, and the Schlieder Foun­da­tion Chair in Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion at Tulane, found­ed ERA over a decade ago, in 2014. The objec­tive then was to pro­vide rig­or­ous, objec­tive, and use­ful infor­ma­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty about the post-Kat­ri­na edu­ca­tion reforms. That research, sum­ma­rized in his book, Char­ter School City, has fed into local and nation­al con­ver­sa­tions about school reform. In recent years, the organization’s agen­da has shift­ed to sup­port­ing New Orleans youth and schools in broad­er ways, reflect­ed in the more recent Kat­ri­na 20 Report, led by Jamie. 

“Jamie did a ter­rif­ic job as ERA’s Asso­ciate Direc­tor. I could tell a long time ago that she had the lead­er­ship abil­i­ty, research skills, and com­mit­ment to the city’s chil­dren to be Man­ag­ing Direc­tor. I’m real­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing what she does with ERA in the com­ing years.” 

Jamie and Doug will con­tin­ue work­ing close­ly togeth­er on ERA as well as our affil­i­at­ed cen­ter, the Nation­al Cen­ter for Research on Edu­ca­tion Access and Choice (REACH).