Rachel Sutton-Heisey

Rachel Sutton-Heisey is Senior Manager of Evaluation, Impact and Research at the Alliance for Decision Education, where she leads evaluation and research efforts to understand and strengthen the impact of Decision Education in K–12 schools. She brings more than 15 years of experience in research, evaluation, and research operations from her time at Mathematica, where she worked on large-scale studies involving survey research, data collection, mixed-methods analysis, research operations, and reporting.

Rachel believes that decision-making skills are most powerful when developed consistently throughout K–12 education, giving students opportunities to build agency, recognize cognitive biases, evaluate information, and make thoughtful decisions over time. She is especially passionate about ensuring that every student has access to these tools. Rachel is particularly interested in how thoughtful research and evaluation can support effective implementation, working collaboratively with teams to develop research processes that produce high-quality data while respecting the realities of the classroom.

Rachel holds a Master of Arts in Geography from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and International Studies from The Pennsylvania State University, with minors in French and Russian. She lives in Yardley, Pennsylvania, with her husband, two children, and mini poodle. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, spending time with her family, exploring new places, and finding fun restaurants to try.