Our Team

Mary Lee, Ph.D.
Dr. Lee serves as Executive Director for PPRC. She oversees the daily management of the organization and serves as chief liaison to clients. Dr. Lee holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa and brings a background in social science research, teaching and program evaluation. She has experience working on local/community-based, national and international projects, encompassing a variety of research and evaluation designs. Dr. Lee is particularly interested in research topics, methods and solutions that address how education, health, economic and social needs can be addressed as interrelated, interdependent phenomena.

Lance Linke, Ph.D.
Dr. Linke serves as Director of Research for PPRC and oversees project quality control for the organization. Dr. Linke specializes in cross-cultural psychology and has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. He has worked in the areas of educational research and evaluations, curriculum design and professional development. Dr. Linke also contributes expertise in indigenous assessment and other culture-based education programs related to Hawai‘i and the Pacific.

Crystal Goodman, Ph.D.
Dr. Goodman serves as a Senior Research Associate for PPRC. She holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Virginia and brings an expertise in student affairs and educational program evaluations. She has a professional background in teaching, education research and academic counseling with an emphasis on the development of population-specific education programs for non-traditional and at-risk students.

Melly Wilson, Ph.D.
Dr. Melly Wilson is a Senior Research and Policy Associate at PPRC and has served as the Director of Research, Policy, and Government Relations at PREL, providing a variety of technical assistance opportunities to state education agencies and school districts. These activities include communities of practice, peer-to-peer exchanges, research and evaluation design, data analysis and reporting, assessment and accountability design, and others as identified through needs-sensing efforts with states and districts. She has served as Principal Investigator or Project Director on multiple state and federally funded projects and overseen the design of research and analysis plans for a variety of projects including experiments, survey research, psychometric studies, evaluations, and secondary analysis of administrative data. She earned her PhD at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a Certificate in Education Finance from Georgetown University, and brings expertise in policy and program evaluation, data systems, survey design, and social research methodology.

Rebecca ‘Ilima Ka‘anehe, Ph.D.
Dr. Rebecca ‘Ilima Ka‘anehe is a Senior Research Associate for PPRC. Most recently Dr. Ka‘anehe served as a Cultural and Educational Specialist in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the Project Director at the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) Hawai‘i Project, which provides professional development to P-12 teachers on use of the CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. ‘Ilima received her doctorate in Developmental Psychology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and is a recipient of the 2014-2015 Kohala Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. As a Native Hawaiian scholar and a fluent speaker of the Hawaiian language, ‘Ilima is a proponent for culture-based education through her work and research experience with Ka Papahana Kaiapuni (Hawaiian language immersion program). Her primary research focus is on culturally compatible education and language revitalization for Hawaiians and other indigenous populations.

Jenna Caparoso, Ph.D.
Ms. Caparoso serves as an Affiliate Research Associate and Project Coordinator at PPRC. She holds a M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa. Ms. Caparoso has a rich and diverse background in education research, evaluation, and assessment; teaching; data analytics; and data visualization techniques. Identifying as a “data enthusiast”, her passion lies in helping stakeholders to  understand data and explore innovative ways to use data to inform decision making, improvement, policy, and programmatic & strategic action.

PPRC also works with an array of specialists from across Hawai‘i’s professional community.