Who's who in TALIS

Heewoon Bae
Analyst
Heewoon is a Korean-born, British national, who joined the TALIS team in November 2022 after working as a statistician on Education at a Glance. Before joining the OECD in May 2021, Heewoon trained as a history teacher through the Teach First programme and worked in secondary schools in the West Midlands and Paris. Heewoon holds a Master of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from Oxford University and a Master of Social Policy and Social Innovation from Sciences Po Paris.

Alison Burke
Analyst
An Australian national, Alison joined the Directorate for Education and Skills in 2018 and has worked on a number of different projects. Before joining the OECD, Alison trained as a secondary school science teacher working in Sydney, teaching physics and science for eight years. Alison holds a Master of Comparative and International Education from Oxford University.

Rodrigo Castaneda Valle
Analyst
A Mexican national, Rodrigo has been working for the Directorate for Education and Skills since 2011. In the past, he has worked in the LSO and NESLI networks, in the analysis of labour force surveys and system level data for Education at a Glance. After a couple of years working in development programs in Southeast Asia, Rodrigo came back to the OECD to work in in the PISA team before joining TALIS in February 2021. He now shares his time between TALIS and PISA. Rodrigo holds an M.Phil. in Philosophy and an master’s degree in linguistics from Lancaster University (United Kingdom).

Gabor Fülöp
Analyst
A Hungarian national, Gabor has been working at the OECD since 2009. Prior to joining the TALIS team in July 2018, he worked as a statistician at several OECD departments, such as the Statistics Directorate, the Development Centre and the Economics Department, where he mainly worked on macroeconomics, structural policies and related statistics. Gabor holds a Master of International Relations and Economics from the Corvinus University of Budapest and a Master of Economics and Development Economics from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom).

Emily Groves
Project assistant
An Australian national, Emily joined the Directorate for Education and Skills in 2003 and has worked on a number of different projects since then. She joined the TALIS team in September 2015 and provides administrative support, maintains the project website and communications tools, and assists with the preparation of publications. Before joining the TALIS team, Emily worked on the OECD Higher Education Programme (IMHE) for several years. Emily has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Ancient History from the University of Queensland and a Graduate Diploma in Library Science from the Queensland University of Technology.

Rodolfo Ilizaliturri Lopez
Analyst
A Mexican national, he joined the TALIS team full time in November 2022 after doing an internship in the same team in May 2022. Before joining the OECD, Rodolfo worked as an analytics consultant in political marketing in Latin America. Rodolfo holds a Master of Data, Economics, and Development Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ruochen Li
TALIS Senior Project Manager
Ruochen joined the OECD in 2016 and has worked on several projects in the area of policy analysis and education survey. Most recently, Ruochen contributed to leading the Above and Beyond: Transitions in Upper Secondary Education project, where he examined issues around general and vocational education pathways, entrance into upper secondary education and how to support students as they move into further education, training and the labour market. Ruochen has also contributed to several country reviews of education policy and the PISA for Schools project, where he focused on stakeholder engagement, and survey instrument and report development.

Prior to joining the OECD, Ruochen worked in education evaluation, project management and teaching. He began his career as a high school teacher, and then worked as a college and career counsellor. Ruochen was born in China and has American nationality. He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in international education policy analysis from Stanford University.

Marco Paccagnella
Analyst
An Italian national, Marco joined the OECD in 2014, after five years spent working as an Economist at the Bank of Italy. He has spent most of his time at the OECD working on data from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). In 2016-17 he worked as lead analyst in the TALIS Video Study. Since 2021, he is back in the TALIS team, working, among other things, on the Teacher Knowledge Survey module. Marco holds a PhD in Economics from Bocconi University and a MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Sophie Vayssettes
Analyst – Country liaison and project management
Sophie is a French national who has been at the OECD since 1991. She joined the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) team in January 2021. She is currently working on country support and on the management of TALIS. In addition, she has been working in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for over 20 years, starting as a statistician and now working as a policy analyst in charge of the implementation of PISA, supporting the management of the project with national centres and with contractors. Prior to this, she worked in the former Directorate for Education, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs and in the Directorate for Science and Technology as a statistician. Sophie holds a master’s degree in econometrics and statistics from Paris II Panthéon-Assas University and a Master of Modeling, Optimization, Decision and Organisation from Paris-Dauphine University.