Kelly Worthington

Kelly Worthington is the Deputy Chief Data Officer (DCDO) for Governance and Strategy at the U.S. Department of Education (ED), where she has worked for more than 20 years.

In her role as DCDO, Worthington leads the Division of Governance and Strategy, which is responsible for developing and supporting the Department’s data strategy and governance policies, providing oversight for the Department’s information collections and clearance processes, and fostering agency-wide data culture. She serves as the Data Governance Board’s program manager and represents the CDO, as needed, on the Department’s Planning and Investment Review Working Group (PIRWG).

Worthington has previously served as the EDFacts Data Governance lead, a Branch Chief and program office liaison in the National Center for Education Statistics, and held multiple positions in the Office of Special Education Programs (data steward, discretionary grant project officer, formula grant monitor). Prior to her time in ED, Kelly was an early childhood special educator.

Worthington earned a Ph.D in Special Education, Education Policy at the University of Maryland, where her work emphasized the use of large-scale datasets to inform policy decisions. She also has a Master in Education from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Bachelor of Arts from Millikin University.