Merridy Wilson-Strydom

Merridy is a senior researcher and project manager with 20 years’ experience doing social and educational research in both traditional academic and applied environments. Merridy has worked at all levels of the education sector in South Africa and other developing country contexts, including schooling, technical and vocational education and training, community colleges, universities and skills development. She is well versed in qualitative and quantitative research methods, including monitoring and evaluation, institutional research, participatory and action research. She has published widely in national and international journals, has published two scholarly books and was an Associate Editor (Education and Social Sciences) for the South African Journal of Science from 2015-2017. Merridy has a PhD in Higher Education Studies from the University of the Free State and an MPhil in Development Studies from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar. Amongst other clients, she is currently working with the LEGO Foundation to evaluate the Foundation Phase Initiative Learning through Play with Six Bricks Manipulatives, the Education Development Center (EDC) to evaluate Takalani Sesame's Community Engagement work, and with Arizona State University (ASU) as evaluation partner for the Baobab Social Learning Platform.