Desiree Carver-Thomas is a Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst at the Learning Policy Institute. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to understand how educator quality, teacher diversity, and leadership development can promote equitable opportunities for teaching and learning. Her work over the past decade includes analyses of large-scale datasets at the national and state level to describe the educator workforce, policy implementation, and opportunities for federal, state, and local intervention.

Carver-Thomas began her career teaching in New York City public schools. Her research draws on her experience in elementary bilingual and special education classrooms.

Carver-Thomas holds an MPP from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, an MS in Teaching from Fordham University, and a BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies with a concentration in Anthropology from Columbia University.