Mary Klute is the Director of Research for the Buechner Institute for Governance. She recieved her M.S. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University in 1998. Mary's fields of interest and expertise include the examination of preventive interventions to support children's social and emotional development and school readiness, with a focus on children living in poverty, methodology, and statistics. Much of her recent work also focuses on how early childhood education programs can use data for quality improvement. She has directed several multi-site research and evaluation studies, including evaluations of the two Early Reading First grants, the Denver Preschool Program evaluation project, and a validation study of a school readiness assessment called the ESTART. Prior to coming to the Buechner Institute, Dr. Klute was Senior Director of Research and Evaluation at Clayton Early Learning, a Denver-based non-profit organization focused on early childhood education.