Julia Rafal-Baer (pron. ray-full bear), Ph.D., began her career as a special education teacher in the Bronx two decades ago, and is now a top education advisor who leads high-performance, high-impact organizations nationwide. She supports and advances the boldest ambitions of education innovators across leading edge work in artificial intelligence, learning science, system leadership, and more.

She is the co-founder and CEO of ILO Group, a women-founded, leadership-focused education policy and strategy firm. She is also the founder and CEO of Women Leading Ed, a national network of women education leaders, and a co-founder and partner at The Forum for Educational Leadership.

She is a trusted confidante to the nation’s most effective state education leaders and superintendents, directly coaching more than 75 leaders into the superintendent and state commissioner roles, 80 percent are leaders of color and 65 percent are women. Dr. Rafal-Baer frequently speaks and writes on the need to advance more women leaders in senior roles.

Dr. Rafal-Baer served as Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department under Commissioner John B. King, Jr, where she was responsible for the strategy, management, and implementation of teacher and leader initiatives, overseeing more than $150M in federal funds.

She currently sits on the national board for the Association of Marshall Scholars; the Education Week Board of Directors; and the advisory committee for the Center for Education Policy and Research at Harvard University. In 2020, Dr. Rafal-Baer was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Education to a four-year term on the National Assessment Governing Board, and in 2024, she was re-appointed to a second term. Her appointments, which span administrations from both Democratic and Republican leadership, reflect broad, bipartisan recognition of her expertise. In 2022 she was named a Pahara Fellow.

Dr. Rafal-Baer graduated summa cum laude from the George Washington University with a B.A. in Psychology and holds a dual M.S. from CUNY: Lehman College in Special Education and Childhood Education. She also holds a Master of Philosophy in Education Research, and a Ph.D. focused on comparative education policy from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Marshall Scholar.

When she is not working shoulder-to-shoulder with education leaders and innovators, she can usually be found on a good, long run or skiing the mountains of Stowe, VT with her husband and two boys.