Matthew Jukes is a Scientific Advisor for IPA's Education Program. He is a Fellow and Senior Education Evaluation Specialist at RTI International. He has more than 25 years of academic and professional experience in evaluating education projects, particularly in early-grade literacy interventions and the promotion of learning through better health.

Dr. Jukes’ research addresses culturally relevant approaches to assessment and programming in social and emotional competencies in Tanzania, improving pedagogy through an understanding of the cultural basis of teacher-child interactions, and frameworks to improve evidence-based decision-making. He is the Principal Investigator of the Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) measurement project and Research Director of the Play Accelerator research program, both funded by LEGO Foundation. Dr. Jukes is also the Research Director of the Learning at Scale research program. His research also contributes to improving academic and social-emotional learning through RTI’s projects to support the Tanzanian education sector.

Previously, Dr. Jukes was an Associate Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Senior Director of Global Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at Room to Read. Dr. Jukes has also applied his research to work with the World Bank, UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNESCO, USAID and Save the Children.