Seasoned Testing Executive Joins Innovative Developer of Simulation-Based Assessments

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Imbellus, an assessment company pushing the bounds of simulation-based measurement, today announced the appointment of Dr. Sean P. "Jack" Buckley as President and Chief Scientist. Dr. Buckley, formerly Senior Vice President of Research at the College Board and Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, joins Imbellus from his most recent role as Senior Vice President of Research and Evaluation at American Institutes for Research (AIR).

"Jack has an extensive track record of leading interdisciplinary psychometrics, learning science, data science, and engineering teams to help the world measure student achievement and growth," said Rebecca Kantar, Founder and CEO of Imbellus. "His move demonstrates a commitment to the next generation of high-stakes assessments, and we are thrilled to welcome him as a champion of our novel approach."

In his role as chief scientist at Imbellus, Dr. Buckley will lead the continued development and deployment of these next-generation tools and build partnerships that will facilitate their application for college admissions, workforce, and lifelong learning.

Imbellus works with major employers to define and measure the skills differentiating human potential in an age of unpredictable, evolving automation. Major employers, including McKinsey & Company, have already begun to deploy their complex simulations for recruitment and human capital development. As this new approach yields more validation data, Imbellus will introduce assessments of hard-to-measure skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, decision-making, and systems thinking to the educational system as a replacement for traditional college admissions assessments.

"Traditional methods of assessment and measurement are insufficient for the employment and education system contexts of today, let alone for future ones," Buckley said. "By bringing together elite learning science, engineering, AI, data science, and psychometrics talent to deliver assessment scenarios that mirror the nature of real-world work, Imbellus is quickly changing the game for traditional assessment actors and their stakeholders and offering more holistic measures of cognitive ability to corporate and education environments."

Dr. Buckley has held numerous positions in government, academia, and the private sector. In addition to his work at AIR, College Board, and the U.S. Department of Education, he has served as a tenured associate professor of applied statistics at New York University and an assistant professor at Boston College. He began his career serving in the United States Navy as a surface warfare officer and nuclear reactor engineer. He holds degrees from Harvard and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

About Imbellus

Imbellus builds assessments that evaluate how people think instead of what they know. Leveraging advances in AI, Imbellus delivers assessments that mitigate cheating and gaming attempts while driving down the cost of producing rich, simulation environments.  Founded in 2016, Imbellus' team of 40+ scientists, psychometricians, data, software, gaming, and AI engineers, and seasoned executives from the likes of Bridgewater, Riot, and McKinsey & Company has already delivered state of the art simulation-based assessments to clients like McKinsey & Company. Imbellus is backed with $23M in venture funding from Owl Ventures, Thrive Capital, Upfront Ventures, and Sound Ventures.

SOURCE Imbellus