Our Team

Susan M. Dynarski is professor of economics, education and public policy at the University of Michigan, co-director of the Ford School's Education Policy Initiative, faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Having previously served as president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy and as a fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Princeton University, she currently serves on the American Economic Journal/Economic Policy Board of Editors and is a past editor of Education Finance and Policy Analysis, Journal of Labor Economics, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Dynarski’s research focuses on financial aid, postsecondary schooling and labor market outcomes and the effectiveness of school reform on academic achievement. She has consulted broadly on student aid reform, at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, White House, Treasury and Department of Education. She has testified to the US Senate Finance Committee, US House Ways and Means Committee and President's Commission on Tax Reform.

• Faculty profile at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
• Dynarski's personal website
• Faculty profile at School of Education

Brian Jacob is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, professor of economics, co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and Youth Policy Lab, and director of the Ford School’s doctoral program.

Jacob’s primary fields of interest are labor economics, program evaluation, and the economics of education. His research focuses on urban school reform, virtual schooling and teacher labor markets; other recent work examines school choice, education accountability programs, and housing vouchers. He leads ongoing research collaborations with policymakers and practitioners, including State of Michigan Department of Education, DC Public Schools and Miami-Dade Public Schools.

Jacob received the David N. Kershaw Prize, an award given every two years to honor persons who, at under the age of 40, have made a distinguished contribution to the field of public policy. He previously served as a policy analyst in the NYC Mayor's Office and taught middle school in East Harlem.

Jacob holds a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and an AB magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University.

• Faculty profile at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
• Jacob's website

Dr. Kevin Stange is an associate professor of public policy. His research interests lie broadly in empirical labor and public economics, with a focus on higher education and health care. He is currently doing research on college choice and changes in the health care workforce. In the past, he has studied educational uncertainty, fertility timing, college quality, and the determinants of participation in social insurance programs. Prior to joining the Ford School, he was a Robert Wood Johnson scholar in health policy research at the University of Michigan. He received undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and economics from MIT and his PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Stange's website at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
• Faculty Profile at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Christina Weiland's research focuses on the effects of early childhood​ interventions and public policies on children's development,​ especially on children from low-income families. She is particularly​ interested in the active ingredients ​that drive children's gains in​ at-scale public preschool programs. Currently, she serves as​ Principal Investigator on a large-scale, Institute of Education​ Sciences-funded study of the longitudinal impacts of the Boston Public​ Schools ​Prekindergarten program on children's reading and mathematics​ skills, grade retention, and special education placement through the​ end of third grade and of variation in these impacts across student​ subgroups and schools. She is also ​​a 2014 National Academy of​ Education/Spencer Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow. She holds an EdD​ (Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education) and a MA from the Harvard​ Graduate School of Education, and a BA from Dartmouth ​C​ollege.

• ​Faculty Profile at School of Education

Dr. Peter Bahr is an associate research professor at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Michigan School of Education. In his research, Dr. Bahr seeks to deconstruct students' pathways into, through, and out of community colleges and into the workforce or on to four-year postsecondary institutions. He also recently was awarded a research grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to study older learners in Ohio’s community colleges with colleagues at the Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University. In a separate line of inquiry, he is investigating students' navigation of the STEM transfer curriculum in community colleges, with the objective of strengthening the pipeline of students into STEM baccalaureate programs. Bahr joined the faculty of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan in 2009. He previously held a faculty appointment in the Department of Sociology at Wayne State University (2004-2009), a research appointment in the Chancellor's Office of the California Community Colleges (2001-2003), and a research appointment in the California Department of Education (2000-2001). He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California-Davis.

• Faculty Profile at School of Education

Dr. John Bound is George E. Johnson collegiate professor of economics, director of doctoral admissions at the University of Michigan. Much of Bound's research has focused on the effect of health on the labor force behavior of older working-aged men and women with a focus on the effects of the U.S. Social Security Disability Program on the behavior and economic well being of working aged individuals. He has worked on the reliability and validity of survey measures of health and was an early contributor to the research showing disability declines among the elderly. In other work, Bound contributed to the evidence that an important influence on the demand for skilled labor within the U.S. is technological change. Much of his recent work has focused on education. In ongoing research Bound is studying the impact of high skilled immigration into the U.S. on U.S. competitiveness and on educational and labor force outcomes for U.S. natives. Along with his appointment in the Department of Economics, Bound is affiliated with and an active member of the governing faculty of Michigan's Population Studies Center and is the director of the Michigan Center for the Demography of Aging (MICDA) there. He is a Faculty Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), affiliated with the Labor Studies, and Education and Aging programs. Dr. Bound holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

• Faculty Profile at Population Studies Center
• Faculty Profile at Department of Economics

Stephen L. DesJardins teaches courses related to public policy in higher education, economics and finances in postsecondary education, statistical methods, and institutional research and policy analysis. His research interests include student transitions from high school to college, what happens to students once they enroll in college, the economics of postsecondary education, and applying new statistical techniques to the study of these issues. His research has been published widely in education and economics journals. He is also on the editorial board of Economics of Education Review, is a contributing editor to Research in Higher Education, and is the methodology section editor for Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research.

DesJardins received a BS in economics from Northern Michigan University, an MA in policy analysis and labor economics from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in higher education with a concentration in research and evaluation methods, also from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining academia, he worked in market research in the private sector and was a policy analyst and institutional researcher for 13 years at the University of Minnesota.

• Faculty Profile at School of Education

Dr. Ben Hansen is an associate professor of statistics in the school of Literature, Science, & the Arts. He also serves as the director of undergraduate programs for LSA and as a research associate at the Institute for Social Research. Dr. Hansen's research develops methods that aim to sharpen comparisons of subjects receiving an intervention to subjects receiving a control condition, particularly nonrandomized comparisons, and to improve communication and understanding of remaining uncertainties regarding effects of the intervention. He writes on statistical and computation issues related to matching, on diagnostics for randomized studies and for matched observational studies, on sensitivity analysis, on propensity scores and related methods of dimension reduction sensitivity analysis, and he is a co-developer of R libraries for optimal matching and associated diagnostics. Dr. Hansen earned degrees in mathematics and philosophy from Harvard College and his PhD in logic and methodology of science from the University of California, Berkeley.

• Faculty Profile at Population Studies Center
• Faculty Profile at Department of Statistics

Dr. Robin Jacob holds appointments as an assistant research professor at the University of Michigan School of Education and the Institute for Social Research. She has a decade and a half of experience conducting rigorous evaluations of educational interventions, with a special interest in how policies and programs can affect the life trajectories of low-income youth. She has expertise in survey design and implementation, the design and implementation of randomized trials and quasi-experimental methods for program evaluation. Her work in low-income schools has focused on interventions that were designed to target a wide range of outcomes including: school readiness, early literacy skills, mathematics achievement, executive functioning, social-emotional skills and health related outcomes. Before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan, she worked for Abt Associate Inc. in Cambridge, MA where she served as the Deputy Project Director for the Reading First Impact Study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Jacob earned her Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Chicago.

• Faculty Profile at School of Education

Dr. Brian McCall is a professor of education, economics and public policy. McCall’s primary fields of interest are in the economics of education, program evaluation, and labor economics. His current research focuses on the effect of tuition subsidies on college attendance, the influence of family wealth on college attendance and completion, the effect of financial aid packages on college attendance, completion and subsequent labor market earnings, the influence of education on job displacement and subsequent earnings, the impact of unemployment insurance rules on unemployment durations and re-employment wages, and the determinants and consequences of repeat use of the unemployment insurance system. Dr. McCall received his PhD in economics from Princeton University.

• McCall's website at University of Michigan
• Faculty Profile at School of Education

Timothy McCay is Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and Professor of Education, School of Education. I am a data scientist, with extensive and various experience drawing inference from large data sets. In education research, I work to understand and improve postsecondary student outcomes using the rich, extensive, and complex digital data produced in the course of educating students in the 21st century. In 2011, we launched the E2Coach computer tailored support system, and in 2014, we began the REBUILD project, a college-wide effort to increase the use of evidence-based methods in introductory STEM courses. In 2015, we launched the Digital Innovation Greenhouse, an education technology accelerator within the UM Office of Digital Education and Innovation. In astrophysics, my main research tools have been the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Dark Energy Survey, and the simulations which support them both. We use these tools to probe the growth and nature of cosmic structure as well as the expansion history of the Universe, especially through studies of galaxy clusters. I have also studied astrophysical transients as part of the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment.

• Faculty profile at Department of Physics

Fabian Pfeffer is Associate Professor & Department Associate Chair of sociology, received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fabian Pfeffer's research investigates social inequality and its maintenance across time and generations. His current work focuses on wealth inequality and its consequences for the next generation, the transmission of inequality across multiple generations, and the maintenance of inequality through education. Pfeffer is also a Research Associate Professor at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research. He serves as the founding director of the Center for Inequality Dynamics (CID) as well as Co-Investigator of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Much of his advising and mentorship occurs within the Inequality Lab (www.theinequalitylab.com), a research and training laboratory that investigates the dynamics of social inequality and trains the next generation of inequality scholars.

• Pfeffer's website

Awilda Rodriguez is an assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. Her research is at the intersection of higher education policy, college access and choice, and the representation of Black, Latino, low-income and first-generation students in postsecondary education.

Her most recent project examines issues of equity in access to rigorous high school coursework and was recently named a William T. Grant Scholar to further this line of inquiry. Along with many policy reports and contributions to edited volumes, Rodriguez’s work has been published in Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and previously worked as a research fellow at American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Higher Education Reform as well as a research associate at The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Matthew Ronfeldt has a PhD in education and is a member of the core faculty for UM’s predoctoral training grant. After receiving his doctoral degree, he completed two more years at Stanford as an IES postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Research on Educational Policy and Practice (now CEPA), focusing on large-scale quantitative research. Matt Ronfeldt seeks to understand how to improve teaching quality, particularly in schools and districts that serve marginalized students. His research sits at the intersection of educational practice and policy and focuses on teacher preparation, teacher retention, teacher induction, and the assessment of teachers and preparation programs. Ronfeldt is primarily interested in whether and how pre-service teacher education and school/district factors, especially working conditions, are related to the employment, instructional quality, and retention of teachers. His current work mostly employs large-scale, quantitative methodologies, though he engages in qualitative and mixed-methods research as well.

• Faculty Profile at School of Education

Kristin Seefeldt is Associate Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work and Associate Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy.
Seefeldt’s primary research interests lie in exploring how low-income individuals understand their situations, particularly around issues related to work and economic well being.
Currently, she is conducting research on families’ financial coping strategies and is a Principal Investigator of a survey examining the effects of the recession and recovery policies on individuals’ well being.

• Faculty Profile at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
• Faculty Profile at School of Social Work

Megan Tompkins-Stange is an assistant professor of public policy at the Ford School. She is the author of Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence (Harvard Education Press, 2016). She is a scholar of education policy and philanthropy, focusing on the influence of private foundations on the politics of K-12 school reform. She received her PhD in education policy and organization studies from Stanford University. School of Education.

• Tompkins-Stange's website at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
• Faculty Profile at Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Brian Rowan is the Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education, a research professor at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, and a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. A sociologist by training (PhD, Stanford University), Rowan’s research has focused on the organization and management of schooling, paying special attention to the measurement and improvement of teaching quality. Over the past 10 years, he has been principal investigator of several large-scale survey and video studies of teaching practice, including the Study of Instructional Improvement, the Description of Reading Instruction in the United States, Understanding Teaching Quality, the Measures of Effective Teaching-Extension project, and the Pilot of Educator Effectiveness Tools in Michigan. His current research includes a randomized field trial of an early grades reading intervention, an evaluation of a high school instructional improvement program (known as Excellence for All initiative), and a study of online high schools in Florida. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Education and past recipient of the William J. Davis award for outstanding scholarship in the field of educational administration. He also has served on the editorial boards of top scientific journals in the field and consulted widely with U.S. federal government and U.S. private research organizations. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1991, he was a senior research director at Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, in San Francisco, California, and chairperson of the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University.

• Faculty Profile at School of Education
• Faculty Profile at Department of Sociology

As a project manager for the Education Policy Initiative, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija serves as the liaison to state agencies and works with government and non-profit partners on identifying research priorities, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting findings. Prior to her work with EPI, Jasmina worked as a senior research associate focused on education and workforce with Public Policy Associates, Inc. in Lansing, MI. She holds a master of public policy degree from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and a PhD in education from Eastern Michigan University.

• camoj@umich.edu

Jonathan Hartman is a Database Analyst with the Education Policy Initiative. His professional interests include large-scale dataset mining, statistical analysis, and programming in Python, R, and C#. He received his Masters of Science in Information from the University of Michigan in 2019 , concentrating on Data Analytics. Prior to that, he worked as a Database Administrator and Technical Support Staff for Technical Inspection of D.C. Inc. in Columbia, Maryland. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in Classical History from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.

Kyle Kwaiser, Data Architect / Manager

Johan Mosquera is a Database Programmer Analyst for the Education Policy Initiative. He earned a Master's in Health Informatics from the University of Michican School of Information and School of Public Health. While a Master's student, he served as a Graduate Student Instructor(GSI) for courses on Data Manipulation and Exploratory Data Analysis using Python, SQL, and cloud computing technologies. Prior to serving as a GSI, he served as a Research Assistant for an Inclusive Teaching in STEM project of the College of LSA and for a Metabolomics project of the Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics. Johan earned a BA in African American Studies from the University of California, Irvine. While in undergraduate school, he was a Summer Undergraduate Research Program Fellow, an Orientation Coordinator, a Resident Advisor, and a Summer Bridge Scholar.

Pam Soltman, Administrative Assistant

Nicole Wagner Lam is the Associate Director for the Education Policy Initiative. In her role, she provides executive leadership, administrative management, develops collaborative state and local partnerships, and supports the overall growth of the research center. Previously, Nicole was the Executive Director for the Office of Data and Accountability for the Boston Public Schools (2016 - 2018). Prior to that she worked in Los Angeles Unified School District (2012 - 2016), at the Center for Education Policy Research (2011 - 2012), and was a Strategic Data Project Fellow (2012 - 2014). Nicole has spent almost 10 years promoting the strategic use of education data to fundamentally improve outcomes and conditions for student learning. She holds a BA in Middle East studies from Calvin College and an MPP from the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Jason Baron is an IES Postdoctoral Fellow with the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He recently obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Florida State University and will join the Department of Economics at Duke University as an Assistant Professor in 2022. His research focuses on topics in the economics of education and public finance

Tareena Musaddiq is an Institute of Education Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow with the Ford School’s Education Policy Initiative. Her research interests are in economics of education and health economics. In her work she uses both experimental and quasi-experimental approaches to answer questions related to education and health outcomes of children in K-12 schools. Some examples of her recent work include utilizing existing communication platforms to improve student attendance and evaluating the impact of school meal provision on child health and school attendance. In future, she is interested in studying the role of social emotional learning and non-cognitive skills in improving academic achievement.

Tareena is also interested in studying education in developing countries. Some of her work looks at the long run and intergenerational effects of primary and secondary schooling for girls in developing countries. Tareena holds a PhD. in Economics from Georgia State University, an MSc in Finance and Economics from University of Warwick, U.K; and a BSc (hon.) in Economics from Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan. She has previously worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at Georgia Policy Labs. Prior to starting her PhD, Tareena taught undergraduate courses in Economics as a Teaching Fellow in Pakistan.

Emanuele Bardelli is a doctoral candidate in Educational Studies at the University of Michigan and an IES predoctoral fellow. My research interests include teacher professional development, teacher learning, and instructional practices in mathematics education.

Bardelli's dissertation focuses on the instructional supports that mathematics teachers experience at the beginning of their careers and their relationship with instructional growth and employment decisions.

Originally from Italy, Bardelli earned a bachelor of science in mathematics from the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, and a master of arts in education and a teaching credential from California State University, Los Angeles. Before beginning my PhD program, he worked both as an instructional coach and as a middle and high school mathematics teacher in Los Angeles and Lodi, California for five years.

Nate Bauer is a doctoral candidate in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education in the School of Education. Nate’s focus of study is public policy in postsecondary education, and he is very interested in financial aid policy and issues of access to higher education for low-income students. Prior to beginning the doctoral program, Nate worked as an assistant director in financial aid administration at the University of Michigan, where he implemented and interpreted federal, state, and local policy initiatives. He is very interested in continuing to improve the federal student aid system and removing barriers to initial college enrollment for low-income students. Nate received a BS in interdisciplinary studies in social science from Michigan State University and a MA in educational policy and leadership studies from the University of Iowa.

Elizabeth Burland is a doctoral student in public policy and sociology and an IES fellow in the University of Michigan's Predoctoral Training Program in Causal Inference in Education Policy Research. Her research interests are in education policy, social stratification, and the intersection of childhood disadvantage, insecurity, and educational equity. Previously, Elizabeth spent a year working at the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware as research and staff support for the state’s Wilmington Education Improvement Commission. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Delaware with a BA and a MA in urban affairs and public policy.

Stacey Brockman is a doctoral candidate in educational studies and an IES predoctoral fellow in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She studies the effect of educational programs and practices on students’ academic and social-emotional growth, and on the equity of student outcomes. She is also interested in teacher education and development, with a particular focus on improving teacher preparation and teaching quality in schools that serve historically marginalized students. Stacey earned both a bachelor of science and master of science in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University, and a master of arts in education from Stanford University. Before beginning her Ph.D. program, Stacey was a high school intervention specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area. In that role, she developed and evaluated academic interventions for students who were off-track from graduation. She also taught high school history for five years.

• Website: https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/staceylbrockman
• Twitter: @staceylbrockman
• Email: slbrock@umich.edu
• Download Stacey's CV

Kristen Cummings is a doctoral student at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education in the School of Education. Her research interests include state higher education policy, financial aid, and the role of geography in college access. Prior to beginning her PhD program, Kristen worked as a research analyst at Abt Associates. She holds a BS in psychology from Rochester Institute of Technology and an MA in higher education from the University of Arizona.

KC Deane is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education and an IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on institutional improvement at broad-access two- and four-year colleges, the intersection of city planning and college access for place-bound students, and state and federal higher education policy. Prior to arriving at Michigan, she worked as a program manager at the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and a research associate at AEI’s Center on Higher Education Reform. She holds a BA in economics from Reed College and a master’s in education policy from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Shauna Dyer is a doctoral student in ​sociology at the University of Michigan and an IES predoctoral fellow. Her research interests include social mobility, employment insecurity and higher education. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in ​social ​science at Chico State University and a master of science in sociology at the University of Oregon. Prior to attending Michigan, Shauna worked at the Eugene Public Library providing early literacy training and support to preschools serving low-income families.

Fernando Furquim is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. His research interests include adult students in higher education, the effectiveness of accreditation and accountability systems for colleges and universities, and college affordability. He currently serves as Director of Institutional Effectiveness for Minneapolis Community and Technical College, using his research training in support of student success. He completed his bachelor of arts in economics and political science at Macalester College, and earned a master's degree in economics and public policy at DePaul University.

• ffurquim@umich.edu

Amanda (Ketner) Weissman is a doctoral candidate in educational studies and an IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include the use of quantitative methods to study education for marginalized student populations both domestically and in Latin America. At UM, she works in the Equity in Early Learning Lab under Dr. Christina Weiland studying early childhood interventions. She is also pursuing a M.A. in Statistics at UM. Before coming to Michigan, she received her M.Ed. in international education policy and management from Vanderbilt University where she studied professional development in rural Honduras. Amanda taught high school math for four years in North Carolina and holds a bachelor's in mathematics from Elon University.

Shawn Martin is a Ph.D candidate in Economics and Public Policy and a fellow in the Predoctoral Training Program in Causal Inference in Education Policy Research. She studies the labor market outcomes of college graduates and differences by the graduate's college major and type of institution attended. Shawn graduated from the University of California – San Diego with a B.S. in Economics and from Georgetown University with a M.S. in Applied Mathematics & Statistics. While in D.C., she was a research assistant at SRI International and at the Comptroller of the Currency. Prior to Georgetown University, Shawn worked as a classroom teacher, curriculum developer and teacher training instructor through a two-year fellowship with Teach for China.

Lillie Moffett is a doctoral student in the Combined Program in Education & Psychology (CPEP). She is a Rackham Merit Fellow, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and now an IES Predoctoral Fellow. Lillie graduated from the University of Southern California in 2016 with a BA in cognitive science and psychology. Her research is focused on early childhood development in educational contexts, with an emphasis on behavioral self-regulation and math learning. Lillie hopes to conduct large-scale interventions that support these skills, and design & evaluate curricula more generally in preschools and elementary schools.

Stephanie Owen is a PhD candidate in Economics and Public Policy and is on the job market in 2020-21. She studies the economics of education and is interested in interventions and policies with the potential to address inequities along various dimensions. Her job market paper focuses on understanding gender gaps in college major choice. Her other work relates to socioeconomic differences in college access. All of her research uses large-scale administrative datasets and causal inference methods, including field experiments..

• Website: https://sites.google.com/view/stephanieowen
• Twitter: @steph_r_owen
• Email: srowen@umich.edu
• Download Stephanie's CV

Shwetha Raghuraman is a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include economics of education, industrial organization, and labor economics; in particular, she is interested in the industrial organization of higher education in the United States. Before coming to Michigan, she worked as a data analyst / engineer in Democratic politics and in Silicon Valley. She holds a BSE degree in computer science from Princeton University.

Michael Ricks is a rising third year PhD student interested in using frontier quantitative methods to answer difficult question in public economics. In his current work he is using heterogenous treatment effects models to measure the effects of age at kindergarten entry on different students, and as a research assistant for Brian Jacob is evaluating the choice behaviors and effects of taking career technical education in Michigan high schools. Prior to studying at the University of Michigan, Michael worked as a research assistant at and graduated from Brigham Young University with B.S. in economics and a minor in Mathematics.

Andrew Simon is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of Michigan and an Institute of Education Sciences predoctoral fellow. His research focuses on issues in public finance, urban economics, and labor economics, with a particular interest in higher education policy and the minimum wage. His job market paper studies the implications of property tax funding for community colleges.

• Website: andrewrsimon.com
• arsimon@umich.edu

Matthew Truwit is a graduate student pursuing his doctorate in quantitative research methods in education and a master’s in statistics at the University of Michigan. He seeks to incorporate a comprehensive perspective on the developmental role of schooling with causal inference methodologies to evaluate the broad effectiveness of policies and programs designed to address educational inequity. Previously, Matthew taught high school social studies and coached soccer at a community school in north Nashville for four years. Before that, he earned a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Duke University and a Master of Education in social studies secondary education from Vanderbilt University.

Brittany Vasquez is a doctoral student in public policy and sociology and an IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. Her fields of interest include economic inequality, mobility, and sociology of education. She holds a bachelor of arts in sociology from Wake Forest University. Before beginning her PhD, Brittany worked at a charter school in Boston.

Alex Baum is a Research Assistant for the Education Policy Initiative and a Master of Public Policy candidate at the Ford School. Prior to Ford, Alex served as a Course Strategist at 2U, Inc., helping university faculty design online versions of their graduate courses. He also served as a legal assistant, helping litigation attorneys prepare for matters ranging from white-collar crime to immigration. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Alex’s research focused on teaching and learning dynamics between family members during board game play, as well as school-community partnerships in Durban, South Africa.

Darian Burns is from Atlanta and is currently in her first year as a MPP candidate. Prior to coming to Michigan, she earned a B.A in both Urban Studies as well as Social Justice and Cultural Studies from Seattle Pacific University. Her interest in education policy was sparked at the PPIA Fellowship that she completed at the Ford School in 2019 so she’s excited to be welcomed on board officially. Her interests in education policy mostly lie in equitable access to educational opportunities and how race, class and housing intersect within this issue.

Zi Gu is a first Year master student at U-M School of Information (UMSI) focusing on Data Science. Prior to studying in UMSI, he graduated at NYU majored in Computer Science and Economics, with 2 years of work experience across different parts of US. His current work at EPI primarily involves descriptive analysis and Machine Learning in order to examine relationships between job market demands and education policy.

Hayden Le is a PhD student in the University of Michigan's School of Information (UMSI). Their research interests revolve around social media phenomena (e.g. online radicalization, toxic behavior, information gathering) and application of machine learning to social science questions. At EPI, they are working with Kevin Stange to explore and analyze the relationship between the job market and higher education investment. Hayden went to the College of William & Mary for their undergraduate education and received one BS in Computational and Applied Mathematics and Statistics and another in Computer Science.

Tyler Radler, Research Assistant

Meredith Billings is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University. Prior to joining the faculty, Meredith was a postdoctoral research and teaching associate in the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia. Her research interests focus on promise programs, college affordability, state higher education finance, tuition policies, and college access programs. Meredith has worked for six years in higher education administration in the areas of institutional research, undergraduate admissions, and civic engagement. She holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from the College of William and Mary, a M.A. in Higher Education from the University of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan.

• Full profile
• billings@shsu.edu

Thomas Goldring is the Research Director of the Georgia Policy Labs at Georgia State University. His research interests include school finance, test-based accountability, and career and technical education. Dr. Goldring earned his Ph.D. and M.Phil., both in public policy and management, from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, and his B.A. in economics from the University of Cambridge. Previously, he worked in technology consulting for Accenture, at a startup in San Francisco, and for a policy research firm in Oakland, CA.

• thgold@umich.edu

Max Gross is a Researcher in the Human Services Division at Mathematica. An applied economist with a focus on labor economics, he uses large data and rigorous quantitative methods to explore how public policy can best support historically underserved populations. His research includes studies on the prevalence of child maltreatment and the relationship between foster care placement and children's outcomes, as well as on the impacts of youth employment programs and barriers faced by community college students. He is also a research affiliate at the Youth Policy Lab and the Education Policy Initiative.

Max earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan where he was an Institute of Education Sciences predoctoral fellow. Before graduate school, he earned a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Steven Hemelt is assistant professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Hemelt was an IES postdoctoral research fellow at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. His fields of interest include education policy, economics of education, labor economics, and program evaluation.

In one strand of current research, Hemelt is examining the effects of different policies or programs on students' performance in high school, transition into college, and longer-run college outcomes (e.g., persistence, credit accumulation, and graduation). In a second line of work, he is exploring the impacts of K-12 accountability structures, consequences, and supports on a variety of student outcomes. In the past, Hemelt has studied the impacts of failure to make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on subsequent student achievement, the effects of additional learning time on student performance, and the usefulness of college double majors in the labor market.

Hemelt earned his PhD in Public Policy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He holds a master and undergraduate degree in economics and a bachelor degree in Spanish.

• UNC Website: http://hemelt.web.unc.edu
• hemelt@email.unc.edu

Daniel Hubbard is an economic researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) in Arlington, Virginia. At AIR, Daniel has designed and conducted a variety of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental evaluations of educational interventions, including teacher professional development, student mentoring, block grants for literacy improvement, and intensified algebra curricula. He also serves as the quantitative lead on the calculation of teacher value-added ratings for the state of Florida, and he is part of a team of researchers working to update the What Works Clearinghouse's methodological standards for education research.

Daniel received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, in which his fields of specialty were labor economics and development economics, with a focus in the economics of education. His dissertation used administrative data from Michigan public schools to study issues in the high school-college transition, including whether schools with higher value-added ratings prepare their graduates to succeed in college, as well as the relationship between local job losses due to plant closings and students' choices about whether and where to attend college.

• Full profile
• danieldh@umich.edu

​Joshua Hyman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut, with a joint appointment in the Department of Educational Leadership in the Neag School of Education. Hyman's fields of interest are in labor economics, public finance, and the economics of education. His research examines the effects of education policies implemented during primary and secondary school on reducing economic inequality in educational attainment. In past and current work, he has examined the effects on educational attainment of a variety of policies, such as class size during elementary school, Michigan's requirement that all high school students take the ACT college entrance exam, and Michigan's 1995 school finance reform. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Connecticut, Hyman was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Hyman earned his Ph.D. in Economics and Public Policy and his M.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan. He earned his B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Tufts University. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a research assistant at Abt Associates in Cambridge, MA.

• Joshua Hyman's website
• joshua.hyman@uconn.edu

​Daniel Kreisman is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Georgia State University. Kreisman previously served as postdoctoral research fellow with the Ford School's Education Policy Initiative. His research addresses topics in labor economics, education finance and education policy, including: vocational education, K-12 funding, student loans, community colleges and labor market discrimination. His research has been published by The Review of Economics and Statistics and the Brookings Institution, and has been cited in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has received grant and fellowship awards from the Institute for Research on Poverty, the American Education Research Association and the Institute of Education Sciences. He has PhD in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a BA in History and Philosophy from Tulane University. Before graduate school Dan taught high school English in New Orleans.

• dkreisman@gsu.edu

Katherine Michelmore is an assistant professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University's Maxwell School. Katherine’s work centers around issues of public policy and family demography. Her two main types of research involve descriptive analyses documenting differences by socioeconomic status in areas such as educational attainment, family formation and dissolution, and evaluating the causal impact of public policies on the well-being of low-income families. Her work as an IES postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan involved documenting gaps in education outcomes by socioeconomic status, and then designing a randomized-controlled trial intended to increase the representation of low-income students at the University of Michigan. Her work in this area has recently been funded by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Her other main area of interest is in evaluating how the U.S. social safety net affects the well-being of low-income families. In particular, she has conducted numerous evaluations of how the largest tax credit for low-income families, the earned income tax credit, has impacted the educational attainment of low-income youth, the family formation patterns of single mothers, and the household finances of single mothers. Using quasi-experimental methods, she asks questions such as: how have the expansions to the EITC over the last several decades impacted the educational attainment of the low-income youth that are exposed to these policy expansions?

Prior to her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, Katherine completed a BA in economics at Wesleyan University, and a PhD in Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University.

• kmichelm@umich.edu

Meghan Oster is a doctoral candidate in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) and IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. She currently works at Iowa College Aid, researching state financial aid policies and student access and success initiatives. Prior to attending Michigan, Meghan worked as an institutional researcher at Northern Virginia Community College for two years. She holds a bachelor of arts in psychology from DePauw University and a master of science in education in higher education and student affairs from Baylor University.

• omeghan@umich.edu

Silvia Robles is a postdoctoral fellow with the Ford School's Education Policy Initiative. Her research interests include the economics of education and labor studies. Her work focuses on the transition between high school and college, and on barriers to higher education among under-represented minority and low-income students in the U.S.

Silvia received a PHD from the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked for two years for Innovations for Poverty Action implementing large scale randomized trials of microcredit interventions in Peru. She is currently working on an evaluation of summer programs for under-represented students in STEM.

• Full profile
• srobles@umich.edu

Nathaniel Schwartz is the director of research and policy at the Tennessee Department of Education. His primary research interests include large-scale instructional intervention, teacher accountability, and student mobility. Dr. Schwartz earned his PhD from the University of Michigan's School of Education, his master of public policy from the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and his bachelor of arts from Harvard College. Previously, he taught high school science through Teach For America in the Mississippi Delta and served as a founding teacher for the Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago.

Anna Shapiro is a doctoral student in educational studies in the School of Education and IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include early childhood education policy, early intervention for students with disabilities, and special education policy. Prior to attending the University of Michigan, Anna worked as a data coordinator at Washington D.C. Public Schools. She holds a BA in educational studies and French Studies from Emory University and a MA in urban education policy from Brown University.

• akshapir@umich.edu

Sabrina Solanki is an IES Postdoctoral Fellow with the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on higher education policy, teacher effectiveness, STEM education, and the evaluation of education interventions. Sabrina received her undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. While serving as an academic counselor through the UCLA Early Academic Outreach Program, Sabrina developed an interest in working with young adults. This experience motivated her to continue to impact young adults by becoming a public high school teacher after graduating with her MAT at the University of California, Irvine. Sabrina developed the economics program at Beckman High School, where she taught both AP Microeconomics and CP Economics for seven years. Prior to beginning her Ph.D., Sabrina received her Master’s in Public Policy from UCI. Her capstone project revolved around the impact of University Bridge Programs on college success for low-income, first-generation students. As a Ph.D. student, Sabrina has spent most of her time working on a number of diverse research projects that focus on improving the college experience and learning outcomes for students, using both quasi-experimental and experimental designs. Her dissertation was an evaluation of a two-year learning communities program for incoming Biological Sciences majors and its impact on both academic and non-academic outcomes.

Dr. Mark Wiederspan is the Executive Director for Iowa College Aid. Mark joined Iowa College Aid as Executive Research Officer in June 2018 and was named Division Administrator for Research and Communications in August 2019. Before returning to Iowa, he was a faculty member at Arizona State University. His areas of research include higher education policy, with a focus on financial aid, economics of education, educational pathways to college, and examination of personal and institutional barriers to college persistence and completion. His work has been published in the Journal of Higher Education, National Tax Journal, and Economics of Education Review. Mark earned a B.A. in Political Science from Nebraska Wesleyan University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education.

• Research: Denying Loan Access: The Student-Level Consequences When Community Colleges Opt Out of the Stafford Loan Program
• mwieders@asu.edu

Xiaoyang Ye received his Ph.D. in higher education with concentrations in economics and K-20 education policy from the University of Michigan in 2019, after receiving B.A. in economics and M.A. in the economics of education from Peking University. His current research focuses on examining effective ways to improve low-income students’ K-12 and higher education access, choice, and success in both the United States and China, including school reforms, managerial and personnel policies, and big data-based behavioral interventions. He is a recipient of the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, AEFP New Scholar Award, and Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. He will be a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University during 2019-2020, and in the Annenberg Institute at Brown University during 2020-2022.

• Full profile
• yxy@umich.edu

Gloria Yeomans-Maldonado was an Institute of Education Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow with the Ford School’s Education Policy Initiative from 2018-2020. Her research interests include early childhood, child development, and the contextual factors that accompany these experiences (i.e., the home, the community, and the classroom), especially for Latino families and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Gloria is also interested in how advances in quantitative methodology can be applied to better understand these experiences. Prior to coming to Ann Arbor, she served as the Senior Research Fellow for Strive Partnership where she also worked with the Cincinnati Public Schools’ Performance and Accountability team on various projects that spanned PK-12. She was also part of the evaluation team of a quality preschool expansion program in Cincinnati. Gloria graduated with a BA in Economics and Math from the University of Arizona; an MS in Economics from Louisiana State University; and a PhD in Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement from Ohio State University. After leaving Michigan, she joined the Children's Learning Institute at UT Health as a faculty member.

• Download the Gloria's CV