Michael Perry

Michael Perry is the Head of Assessment & Planning at Northwestern University Libraries. In this role he manages efforts around assessment and user experience and consults on planning and organizational analysis. Michael holds a BA in Political Science from DePaul University focusing on comparative politics and early American political thought and MA in Library and Information Science from Dominican University focusing on knowledge management and law librarianship. Michael is the liaison to the Center for Legal Studies, an intensive undergraduate research focused program.

His research focuses on learning analytics and student perceptions of their use in both higher education broadly and academic libraries more specifically. This research resulted in a $500,000 Institute of Museum and Library Service grant with 4 core research outputs coving the scope of the multi-year, multi-institute study. First, the group produced primer on the ethical issues of libraries and learning analytics1. Following papers focused on each phase of the project: interviews2, surveys3, and focus groups4. Michael is also the 2024/25 Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities Librarian Fellow. His project focuses on the work of noted Brazilian heavy metal musician Max Cavalera and explores the evolution of political themes and their change upon his immigration to the United States.