Sandra McNally


Sandra McNally is an Irish economist, who is Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey and works at the Centre for Economic Performance, at the London School of Economics

Early life

She was born in Dublin. She has two half-brothers, and a sister and brother.
She has a BA in Economics from Trinity College, Dublin, studying from 1990-94. She has an MSc in Environmental Economics, studying from 1994–95, and a PhD from University College London in January 2003.

Career

From 1995-2001 she worked as an economist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Abbots Ripton in Cambridgeshire.

LSE

In September 2001, she joined the Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE. From October 2002 she also carried out work for the Centre for the Economics of Education think tank, being the Deputy Director from January 2005 to December 2009. In October 2007 she became Director of the Education and Skills Programme at the CEP.
She is the Director of the Education and Skills Programme at the CEP at the LSE, working in education economics. She carries out research into education performance. She has produced reports in conjunction with Prof Stephen Machin, the Director of the CEP.
In March 2015 she became Director of the Centre for Vocational Education Research at the LSE. The centre had been launched in March 2015; there is comparatively much less research on the FE sector in the UK than on other sectors; this sector is also described as tertiary education. There is also the Further Education Trust for Leadership, launched in 2014.

University of Surrey

In April 2012 she became Professor of Economics at the University of Surrey, in their School of Economics.

Research

McNally's area of research is economics of education; evaluation of school-level policies and post-16 education. In May 2007, she wrote a 'fact checking' report for i on education spending in the UK.