Jane Hannaway is an organizational sociologist whose work focuses on the study of educational organizations. She is founding Director of the Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute in Washington, D. C. and part of the Institute's senior management team. She is also the director of a new federally funded research center, CALDER (Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research), focused on analyses of state longitudinal student and teacher level administrative data bases, particularly analyses associated with teacher labor markets. Much of her recent research has focused on structural reforms in education, including reforms promoting accountability and reforms related to human resource management in education.

Hannaway previously served on the faculty of Columbia, Princeton, and Stanford Universities. She has authored or co-authored seven books and numerous papers in education and management journals. Her most recent book is Collective Bargaining in Education: Negotiating Change in Today's Schools co-edited with Andrew Rotherham, published by Harvard Education Press. She served twice as vice president of the American Educational Research Association and also served on the Executive Board. She also was elected to the Council of the Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) and is a member of the advisory committee to the U. S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) for education studies. Hannaway serves on the editorial board of a number of journals and is past editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the main policy journal of the American Educational Research Association. She is currently on the Executive Board of the American Education Finance Association and also serves on the National Academy of Science panel examining the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University.