Education Endowment Foundation:Remembering our friend and colleague, Danni Mason

Danni dedicated her professional life to improving the life chances of the most vulnerable through data and evidence. We were lucky that she brought her skills, expertise, and commitment to the EEF.

She took up the role of Head of Research in 2016, overseeing our evidence synthesis work until 2020. She is such a pivotal figure in our history and her contributions have had far-reaching and long-lasting impacts.

Perhaps most notably, Danni was responsible for leading the Toolkit database project, taking it from a meta-analysis of meta-analyses into the world-leading systematic review it is today. She also forged many of our early international partnerships and was particularly pivotal in building our (now) long-standing relationship with SUMMA in Latin America.

Danni always pushed the EEF to dig more into the evidence and to consider the way we present findings. She wanted to provide evidence that was relevant and precise. She thought a lot about how to improve evidence-use, whether it was digging below the surface on the evidence base around setting and streaming, or grappling with the way that researchers should present statistical uncertainty.

Danni was too modest to ever take credit for any of these things, which are now so fundamental to our work. She was an exceptional colleague – supportive, generous, committed, and diligent.

We will remember Danni for all of these qualities, but also for bringing a sense of silliness to the office. We’ll remember her inviting the entire EEF team to her house for ​‘EEF Olympics’, complete with an assault course in her garden and (more importantly), a barbeque.

Above all, Danni was a great friend to many of us. Every time you met up with Danni, you left feeling better than you did before.