Stacey Pelika
(she/her)
Washington Improv TheaterStacey Pelika is Director of Research at the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union and education advocacy organization.
Since 2012, Stacey has led the Research Department at the National Education Association (NEA), which represents three million educators working in public schools. In this role, she leads a team that conducts research to inform NEA strategy and lift up educators’ voices and experiences. She also oversees how NEA uses research to advocate for safe, just, and excellent public schools for all students, from pre-K through higher education.
Stacey was previously Director of Research at the Children’s Defense Fund and Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary. She holds a B.A. in American studies from Carleton College, an A.M. in education from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She looks forward to using her experience in strategic planning, grant writing, budget oversight, and program evaluation as a member of the WIT Board.
Stacey’s time at WIT started with a one-day Improv for Business workshop in 2019, during which she realized that improv scratched the same itch as teaching, only without having to grade papers. She has since completed the WIT curriculum and credits WIT online electives with helping her maintain her sanity during the pandemic. A native Minnesotan, Stacey is working on making her characters’ emotions explicit rather than burying them under layers of passive-aggressive niceness.
A native Minnesotan, Stacey has realized that when she thinks her emotions are at a '10,' they're actually at about a '4.'
Stacey has completed the WIT curriculum and taken a variety of electives at WIT, DC Improv, Rails Comedy, and WGIS, including Advanced Harold, the Monoscene, Close Quarters, and Scene Study: Game. She performs with indie team Girass! and special project Fargoprov, and is an active member of WIT’s “And, Wiser” affinity group for (self-defined) “older” improvisers.
When she’s not doing improv, Stacey fights for public schools through her work at the National Education Association, where she is the director of research. Stacey also enjoys travel (often for work, sometimes for fun), TV, and trivia, with the last two combining into her having a freakish knowledge of television casts of the 1980s.