Courtney Bell completed her doctorate at Michigan State University in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy after earning her B.A. in Chemistry at Dartmouth College. A former high school science teacher and teacher educator, Courtney’s research looks across actors in the educational system to better understand the intersections of research, policy and practice. Her studies use mixed-methods to analyze the measurement of teaching and the validity of measures of teaching quality, especially observational measures. Current and recent studies investigate how administrators learn to use a high stakes observation protocol, how raters use subject specific and general protocols, how measures of teaching compare across countries, and the ways in which observation protocols capture high quality teaching for students with special needs. She has published in a variety of scholarly journals and also co-edited the 5th Edition of the American Educational Research Association’s Handbook of Research on Teaching.