Dr. Becker is a senior research scientist with Pearson and consulting editor for the Journal of Computer Adaptive Testing. He has over twenty years’ experience conducting research and performing operational work in measurement and psychometrics. Kirk’s current research focuses on efficient methods for evaluating and coding large item pools using natural language processing. This research on natural language processing is currently being extended to automated item generation, item modeling, and the evaluation of item quality. Additionally Kirk has continued to research methods for developing, evaluating, and scoring innovative test items and performance tasks, with current research looking at the application of polytomous scoring models on information functions and adaptive administration. He has presented research at the annual conferences of AERA, ATP, NCME, and many other industry conferences.  Kirk received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.