Prior to establishing the Shaffer Evaluation Group, Dr. Shaffer was the Evaluation Manager for NASA's Office of Education and Vice President of the Educational Policy Institute. She has led over forty educational program evaluations ranging from national evaluation studies conducted for federal agencies including the Library of Congress and the President's Committee for the Arts and the Humanities to smaller-scale research and evaluation studies for state educational agencies, institutions of higher education, and school districts. She served on STEM evaluation federal interagency working groups in K-12 education convened by the Obama White House administration and on the Interagency Council on Evaluation Policy. Dr. Shaffer earned a Ph.D. in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership at the College of William & Mary and a M.A. in Curriculum Studies at the University of Toronto.