About RISEI Lab at Northwestern University — a research lab in four directions at once.
RISEI Lab is an innovative research unit at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy, directed by Dr. Michelle Yin. We work in four service lines — innovation & AI tooling, evaluation partnership, speakers & expert support, and knowledge translation — for federal and state agencies, foundations, NGOs, and fellow researchers.
Bring us in at the proposal stage. The earlier we're involved, the better the evaluation, the stronger the proposal, and the cleaner the downstream work.— How RISEI partners best
How partners engage us.
Each service line has named deliverables, active partners, and can stand alone or combine with the others across a single engagement.
Innovation & AI Tooling
Helping partners build AI-driven processes, evaluation tools, and curricula. Custom LLM pipelines, AI-assisted literature review, automated fidelity dashboards, apprenticeship curriculum frameworks — deployed with state agencies and employer networks.
- Custom AI tools for grants
- AI training for partner staff
- Apprenticeship curriculum design
- Methodology innovation (APF)
Evaluation Partnership
Designing a new product, curriculum, or policy option — and need an evaluation partner? We support intervention and policy evaluation on IES, NSF, DOL, and SEED grants, and with state agencies, nonprofits, and international organizations. Named on the proposal, accountable for the deliverables.
- Lead evaluator (model demonstrations)
- Named evaluation partner (multi-institution)
- Technical assistance & consultation
- Admin-data linkage & analysis
Speakers & Expert Support
Keynotes, Capitol Hill briefings, conference panels, and standing expert-witness roles on disability employment, AI and the future of work, inclusive education, and evaluation methodology. Dr. Yin speaks internationally and maintains availability for agency and foundation briefings.
- Keynotes & conference panels
- Agency briefings & testimony
- Expert-witness support
- Board advisory engagements
Knowledge Translation
Data visualization, scientific storytelling, and translating technical content into accessible materials for policymakers, families, case managers, and community audiences. Interactive dashboards, visual briefs, plain-language toolkits, and narrative-driven reports that actually get read.
- Custom dashboards (Tableau)
- Plain-language policy briefs
- Visual explainers & infographics
- Agency-branded embeds
Directed by Dr. Michelle Yin.
Principal Investigator & Lab Director. Professor at Northwestern University's School of Education and Social Policy. Former Senior Advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Leading a $50M+ research portfolio at the intersection of workforce, education, and emerging technologies.
Dr. Yin's research advances workforce, education, and labor-market policy through rigorous evaluation and AI-enabled innovation. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and on Capitol Hill briefings. She designed evaluation frameworks used across Special Olympics International's 170+ country network and consults with federal and state agencies on proposal design, evaluation methodology, and AI-enabled operations.
Senior advisors, lead economists, postdocs, research staff.
A distributed team across Northwestern, Rochester, Virginia, Stony Brook, Tulane, AIR, IEL, and beyond — plus affiliates and alumni who continue to collaborate on RISEI projects.
The broader ecosystem.
RISEI Lab is one of a network of Dr. Yin's research and educational initiatives.
Bring us in at the proposal stage.
The earlier we're involved, the better the evaluation, the stronger the proposal, and the cleaner the downstream work. Whether you need innovation partnership, evaluation, a speaker, or knowledge translation — we'd like to talk.
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