AEA-Europe Council
Under the revised constitution, the Vice President will serve for two years and then become President for the following two years.
You can read an interview with our current President here.
Expressing gratitude to the outgoing AEA-Europe Treasurer: Cor Sluijter
The Council as of November 2022 is as follows:
President
Professor of Educational Assessment, Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre, Melbourne Graduate School of Education
Therese Hopfenbeck
Therese N. Hopfenbeck is Professor of Educational Assessment at the Assessment and Evaluation Research Centre (AERC) in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is elected President of The Association for Educational Assessment-Europe (2022 – 2024) and Lead Editor of the journal Assessment in Education, Principle, Policy and Practice (2016 – dd). She is Adjunct Professor of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford. Therese is member of the Visiting Panel for Research at the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, expert member of the PISA 2022 Questionnaire Framework group, appointed by ETS and OECD (2014 – 2022) and Chair of the PISA 2025 Questionnaire Framework group appointed by ACER and OECD (2022–2026). In collaboration with Professor Nancy Perry, University of British Columbia, she is currently leading an international network of researchers disseminating classroom-based research on self-regulation, funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2020–22).
Before starting her position in MGSE, Therese was the Director of the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (2016–22), where she was leading a team working on international large-scale assessment studies in education and classroom-based video studies. She was Principal Investigator for two research projects funded by IB, on critical thinking in PYP schools internationally and evaluation of education reforms in Kent, UK (2020–22). In 2020, she led the research on Critical Thinking in the Diploma Program in Australia, England and Norway and was Principal Investigator for the PISA 2022 study in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, in collaboration with Pearson UK (2018–23). Therese was also Principal Investigator for the ESRC-DFID-funded project, Assessment for Learning in Africa (AFLA): Improving Pedagogy and Assessment for Numeracy in Foundation Years. The focus of this project was to conduct research on formative assessment in primary school early years’ numeracy contexts in Tanzania, East Africa and two sites in South Africa.
She has been the recipient of funding from ESRC-DFID, OECD, The Norwegian Research Council, Education Endowment Foundation, State Examinations Commissions Ireland, Jacob Foundation and the International Baccalaureate totalling more than £2m in addition to a single grant of £4m in collaboration with SLATE: Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology at the University of Bergen, Norway. Prior to her appointment at Oxford, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oslo’s research group for Measurement and Evaluation of Student Achievement at the Unit for Quantitative Analysis of Education (2010–11) where she also did her PhD. She has social media present on ResearchGate, LinkedIn and Twitter @TNHopfenbeck.
Vice President
Associate Professor at the School Of Education, Trinity College Dublin
Damian Murchan
Professor Damian Murchan teaches at the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, and is a Fellow of the Association for Educational Assessment-Europe. With previous roles as a teacher, primary school principal, and University Head of School, his experience spans Primary, Secondary and College levels, including initial and continuing education for teachers and university leadership.
Professor Murchan’s research interests include educational reform, assessment methods, e-learning and assessment, incorporation of key skills into the curriculum, and teacher professional development. A member of the Research In School Education (RISE) group in the School of Education in Trinity, his current research focuses on regulatory and ethical implications of using data analytics in digital assessments and on the process of Junior Cycle reform.
Professor Murchan is co-editor of a recent book, Curriculum Change Within Policy and Practice, that explores the process and implementation of reform of the Junior Cycle of post-primary education. His 2017 book on educational assessment, Understanding and Applying Assessment in Education, provides a comprehensive analysis of assessment policy and practice in primary and post-primary education. His research is widely disseminated through journals and conference presentations internationally. He has held a number of advisory roles in relation to the development of assessment policy and practice in Ireland and internationally. He co-chairs a consortium established by Trinity and the Educational Research Centre Drumcondra that hosted the Annual Meeting of the Association for Educational Assessment-Europe (AEA-Europe) in Dublin in November 2022.
Professor Murchan recognises the value of communicating educational ideas, including research outputs, to wider audiences. He is a frequent contributor to print and broadcast media in both the English and Irish languages. He is available to supervise Doctoral students in the areas of Educational assessment and testing, Evaluation and Educational reform.
Treasurer
Director of Cito International (Netherlands).
Melchior de Vries
Melchior de Vries (1970) is the Director of Cito International (Netherlands).
Much of his working life, he has worked in educational publishing. As a publisher, he developed learning and teaching materials for primary and vocational education. Later, as a publishing manager he was responsible for product development in primary and in secondary education for one of the major educational publishing companies in the Netherlands.
In 2018, he made the move into educational assessment. The department he leads provides training and consultancy in all aspects of testing and assessment. Within the Netherlands, services are targeted at teachers and professionals in educational assessment ranging from primary to higher education. Outside the Netherlands, Cito supports governments, international organizations (such as UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank) and National Exam Boards in capacity building and consultancy. Since 2020, he is Chair of the Dutch Exams Association (NVE).
Executive Secretary
Director of Research and Regulation at AQA.
Alex Scharaschkin
Alex is Director of Research and Regulation at AQA. He is responsible for setting and maintaining standards in AQA’s qualifications, the programme of assessment research and overseeing regulatory activity.
He has previously been a Director at the UK National Audit Office, leading teams delivering evidence-based reports for Parliament on the cost-effectiveness of government programmes in health and social care, and examining the use and regulation of market mechanisms in public services. He earlier headed the NAO’s methodology and statistics team, and has published research on the nature of assessment of government performance. He has also worked at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and at the Associated Examining Board, where he specialised in applying quantitative methods to the examination of issues in standard setting and maintenance, and the design and awarding of national curriculum tests.
His research interests include the philosophy of measurement in education and the social sciences, the nature of validity arguments, and the application of quantitative and interdisciplinary approaches in assessment.
Non-Executive Member
Member since 2002. Associate Professor, Faculty of Education University of Malta.
Deborah Chetcuti
Deborah has been a member of the association since 2002, the association has provided her with the opportunity to network with professionals currently engaged in assessment research. She is currently Associate Professor in Science Education at the University of Malta.
She currently teaches courses in science methodology and assessment at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and have supervised a number of masters and doctoral students. Her main research interests are in the development of ‘fairer’ assessment practices in both secondary and tertiary education. She has been involved in a number of projects that focused on the assessment of students with a profile of dyslexia, assessment in multi-cultural classrooms, and the examination of doctoral candidates. Deborah was also a member of the National Science Education Strategy committee and contributed to the drafting of a consultation document that outlined a vision for science education in Malta.
Deborah has been a member of AEA-Europe for many years and attended a number of the annual conferences. She was part of the local organizing committee for the conference hosted in Malta (2008). Recently, Deborah became a council member and is responsible for chairing the Publications Committee.
Non-Executive Member
Lecturer, Faculty of Education University of Cambridge
Stuart Shaw
I have worked for international awarding bodies for over 20 years. From 2007 to 2021, I was Head of Research at Cambridge Assessment International Education where I was particularly interested in demonstrating how educational, psychological and vocational tests seek to meet the demands of validity, reliability and fairness. Before leading a research team in the area of mainstream international examinations, I worked on a range of Cambridge English tests with specific skill responsibilities for assessing writing.
I have a wide range of publications in English second language assessment and educational research journals (including books, chapters, journal articles and conference proceedings). My assessment books include: Examining Writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing (Shaw & Weir, 2007); The IELTS Writing Assessment Revision Project: towards a revised rating scale (Shaw & Falvey, 2008); Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment (Newton & Shaw, 2014); Language Rich: Insights from Multilingual Schools (Shaw, Imam & Hughes, 2015) and Is Assessment Fair? (Isabel Nisbet & Stuart Shaw, 2020). I am currently working on a book with Isabel Nisbet (to be published by Routledge in 2023) entitled: Educational Assessment in a Changing World: Lessons Learned and the Path Ahead.
I am a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA) and a Fellow of the Association for Educational Assessment in Europe (AEA-Europe) where I am additionally Chair of its Scientific Programme Committee. I am also an elected Member of the Board of Trustees of the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA). Other IAEA commitments include: Chair of the Communications Committee and Newsletter Editor. I am also an affiliated lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
Non-Executive Member
Dean of the School of Education at the University of Nicosia and a Fellow of AEA-Europe.
Elena Papanastasiou
Elena is the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Nicosia. She is a Fellow of AEA-Europe and has carried out research in the areas of assessment mainly in the context of computer adaptive testing.
She received her Ph.D. in Measurement and Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University and an Honors B.Sc. in Education from The Pennsylvania State University.
Prof. Papanastasiou is mostly interested in the areas of assessment, test development, psychometrics, and process data in the context of computer adaptive testing.
Dr. Papanastasiou also serves as the General Assembly representative of Cyprus in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), while in 2014 she had also been elected in the Standing Committee of the organization. In 2018 she was awarded the status of Fellow of the Association of Educational Assessment-Europe in which she currently serves as a Council Member.
Council Organisation Chart
Click on image to enlarge
Council Meetings
Council meetings are held quarterly and agendas from previous meetings can be found here.
AEA-Europe Council
Under the revised constitution, the Vice President will serve for two years and then become President for the following two years.
You can read an interview with our current President here.
Expressing gratitude to the outgoing AEA-Europe Treasurer: Cor Sluijter
The Council as of November 2022 is as follows:
President
Active member for many years. Associate Professor, Umea University, Sweden.
Christina Wikstrom
Christina has been a member of AEA-Europe for many years and has attended all 20 conferences organized by the Association. She is currently Associate Professor in Educational measurement at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umea University.
She is interested in many topics relevant for fair and valid assessment, but most of her research is focused on issues related to admission to higher education. Christina teaches courses in assessment at undergraduate and postgraduate level, supervises doctoral students, and is head of the doctoral program in Educational Measurement at Umeå University. She is also one of the coordinators for a national research school in quantitative research methods in education (QRM) that is being launched this year. Christina also has a number of other responsibilities, such as: chairing the international advisory board for the Swedish Scholastic Assessment Test, the SweSAT; a member of an advisory committee for the Swedish Council for Higher Education; a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Assessment in Education: principles, policy and practice; and associate editor for the Frontiers’ Journal Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement.
She has been an active member of AEA-Europe for many years, and has attended all of the AEA-Europe annual conferences. Christina became a member of the council in 2001, and the Executive Secretary of the association a few years later. She has also been part of the organizational teams for several conferences, and was the main organizer of the annual conference in Stockholm in 2007. Christina has remained active through participation in conference organisation activities, and as member of the doctoral forum and committees such as the publication committee, the nomination committee, and the audit committee.
Vise President
Professor of Educational Assessment at the University of Oxford.
Therese Hopfenbeck
Therese N. Hopfenbeck is Professor of Educational Assessment and Director of the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment, where she is leading a team working on international large-scale assessment studies in education, assessment for learning (AfL), critical thinking and self-regulation. In addition, Therese is Director of the University of Oxford’s Master in Educational Assessment.
She is currently Research Lead for PISA 2022 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, member of the PISA 2022 Questionnaire Expert Group, Research and Dissemination Lead for PIRLS 2021 in England and principle investigator of two IB-funded research studies on Critical Thinking. Therese is also Lead Editor of the international research journal Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice.
Before coming to Oxford in 2012, Therese held a post-doctoral position at the University of Oslo’s research group for Measurement and Evaluation of Student Achievement at the Unit for Quantitative Analysis of Education, where she also conducted her PhD under the supervision of Professor Svein Lie. She first attended AEA-Europe in Naples 2006, and has been a member ever since. She is a Norwegian at heart, loving England, but missing the snow and cross-country skiing back home.
Treasurer
Director, Cito International (Netherlands).
Melchior de Vries
Melchior de Vries (1970) is the Director of Cito International (Netherlands).
Much of his working life, he has worked in Educational publishing. As a publisher, he developed learning and teaching materials for primary and vocational education. Later, as a publishing manager he was responsible for product development in primary and in secondary education for one of the major educational publishing companies in the Netherlands.
In 2018, he made the move into educational assessment. The department he leads provides training and consultancy in all aspects of testing and assessment. Within the Netherlands, services are targeted at teachers and professionals in educational assessment ranging from primary to higher education. Outside the Netherlands, Cito supports governments, international organizations (such as UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank) and National Exam Boards in capacity building and consultancy.
Since 2020, he is Chair of the Dutch Exams Association (NVE).
Executive Secretary
Director of Research and Regulation at AQA.
Alex Scharaschkin
Is the Director of AQA’s Centre for Education Research and Practice (CERP). He is responsible for setting up and delivering AQA’s research strategy, and oversees a research centre.
Alex Scharaschkin is the Director of AQA’s Centre for Education Research and Practice (CERP). He is responsible for setting and delivering AQA’s research strategy, and oversees a research centre of around 60 staff.
He has previously been a Director at the UK National Audit Office, leading teams delivering evidence-based reports for Parliament on the cost-effectiveness of government programmes in health and social care, and examining the use and regulation of market mechanisms in public services. He earlier headed the NAO’s methodology and statistics team, and has published research on the nature of assessment of government performance. He has also worked at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and at the Associated Examining Board, where he specialised in applying quantitative methods to the examination of issues in standard setting and maintenance, and the design and awarding of national curriculum tests.
His research interests include the philosophy of measurement in education and the social sciences, the nature of validity arguments, and the application of quantitative and interdisciplinary approaches in assessment.
Non-Executive Member
Member since 2002. Associate Professor, Faculty of Education University of Malta.
Deborah Chetcuti
A member of the association since 2002, the association has provided her with the opportunity to network with professionals currently engaged in assessment research. She is currently Associate Professor in Science Education at the University of Malta.
Deborah Chetcuti is an Associate Professor in Science Education in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education at the University of Malta.
I currently teach courses in science methodology and assessment at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and have supervised a number of masters and doctoral students. My main research interests are in the development of ‘fairer’ assessment practices in both secondary and tertiary education. I have been involved in a number of projects that focused on the assessment of students with a profile of dyslexia, assessment in multi-cultural classrooms, and the examination of doctoral candidates. I was also a member of the National Science Education Strategy committee and contributed to the drafting of a consultation document that outlined a vision for science education in Malta.
I have been a member of AEA-Europe for many years and attended a number of the annual conferences. I was part of the local organising committee for the conference hosted in Malta (2008). Recently, I became a council member and am responsible for the chairing of the Publications Committee.
Non-Executive Member
Works at SCIO in the Czech Republic, a company involved in the development of professional tests.
Andrej Novik
Works at SCIO in the Czech Republic, a company involved in the development of professional tests for entrance exams. He was involved in the development of computer based assessment in Czech schools.
I was born in 1975 in Prague and graduated from the Charles University in Prague. During my studies I had opportunities to study in Germany, Croatia and Bulgaria too.
After graduation in 2000 I continued to work at the Faculty of Philosophy as a PhD. student and lecturer. In my work I focused mainly on dialectology and linguistics in the Central European area. Working with students, as well as the societal changes that took place at the time, made me more concerned with education. That is why I joined SCIO in 2007, which is involved in reshaping education policy, educational measurement and the search for modern forms of education both in and out of school.
This year it’s been 11 years since I began to work in education and educational measurement. During my career, I have been involved in numerous projects: from developing test items through finding innovative tools in the areas of learning and assessment to designing complete programmes.
I am proud to have been involved in the first mass introduction of IRT, computer based assessment, or CAT in Czech schools. I am happy that our MUPINKA computer-based formative assessment programme, which introduced the concept of the developmental continua in the Czech Republic, was awarded the Best Czech achievement in the field of education in 2015.
In addition to working in Scio, I also work externally and internally with several local non-profit organizations involved in education both in the Czech Republic and abroad.
I am married; I have two children and a cat.
I can speak Czech, English, German, Russian, Croatian/Serbian and Bulgarian.
Non-Executive Member
Dean of the School of Education at the University of Nicosia and a Fellow of AEA-Europe.
Elena Papanastasiou
Is the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Nicosia. She is a Fellow of AEA-Europe and has carried out research in the areas of assessment mainly in the context of computer adaptive testing.
Prof. Elena C. Papanastasiou, the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Nicosia, has received her Ph.D. in Measurement and Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University and an Honors B.Sc. in Education from The Pennsylvania State University.
Prof. Papanastasiou is mostly interested in the areas of assessment, test development, psychometrics, and process data in the context of computer adaptive testing.
Dr. Papanastasiou also serves as the General Assembly representative of Cyprus in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), while in 2014 she had also been elected in the Standing Committee of the organization. In 2018 she was awarded the status of Fellow of the Association of Educational Assessment-Europe in which she currently serves as a Council Member.
Council Organisation Chart
Click on image to enlarge
Council Meetings
Council meetings are held quarterly and agendas from previous meetings can be found here.