About me
Dennis joined the U.S Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) in June 2020 as a senior advisor for the Office of Student Aid Experience and Delivery (SEAD). He joined the FSA’s office of Policy Implementation and Oversight (PIO) as the director of the Policy Research and Analysis Group (RAG) in September 2021. PIO advises FSA on higher education policy to ensure that operations are considered in policy development and, once enacted, that policy is implemented to meet intended goals. RAG leads the agency’s efforts to conduct rigorous and policy-relevant evaluations to inform key policy and program implementation decisions. Before joining FSA, Dennis served on the faculties at the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Florida. He was the founding director of the University of Florida’s Education Policy Research Center and coordinated multiple graduate programs in education policy and higher education administration. While on the faculty, he completed a multiyear fellowship with the Office of Evaluation Sciences (formerly known as the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team) and partnered with federal agencies to implement behavioral sciences principles to increase benefit access and agency efficiency. He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education Policy from the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. He is a nationally respected scholar and published academic on topics including the economics of education; higher education finance; federal student aid; the impacts of federal, state, and local education policies; higher education access and completion; and labor market outcomes.
