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Degrees & Programs
CONCENTRATION: Culture, Institutions, and Society (CIS)
INTERESTS: Social-emotional Learning, Psychosocial Support, Education in Emergencies, Teacher Development, Informal Learning, Critical Theory, Mixed-methods Research
Somaia Abdulrazzak’s research examines how education fosters strength, identity, and growth in crisis contexts, focusing on teacher empowerment, social-emotional learning, and culturally grounded practice through critical and post/neo-colonial lenses.
Currently on the Job Market
INTERESTS: Indian Anti-Colonial Education, Alternative Education, Social Epistemology
Devika is a philosopher and anthropologist of education focusing on the anticolonial education movement of India. Her dissertation looks at the theory and modern-day practice of pedagogical innovations suggested by Tagore, Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghose and Jiddu Krishnamurti.
CONCENTRATION: Human Development, Learning and Teaching (HDLT)
INTERESTS: Teaching and Learning, Reasoning and Thinking, Classroom Discourse, Multilingual Pedagogy, Curriculum Design, Bilingualism, Hindi-medium Education
Apoorv Avram's research tries to understand how adolescents develop and use reasoning in school. His doctoral work looks at how English-medium classrooms in Delhi, India use Hindi in teaching-learning practices. His work borrows methods from philosophy, sociology, and psychology.
CONCENTRATION: Education Policy and Program Evaluation (EPPE)
INTERESTS: Causal Inference, Quantitative Methods, Policy Evaluation, Teacher Retention, Teacher Recruitment, Teaching Quality, Teacher Labor Markets
INTERESTS: Adolescence, Identity, Intersectionality, Pathways, Values
Mamfatou Baldeh is a Ph.D. student in the AERID lab working with Dr. Adriana Umaña-Taylor. Her research interests center the identity development, values, and relationship/community-building experiences of adolescent students in the U.S.
INTERESTS: Student Agency, Social Cognitive Theory, Critical and Institutional Sociology, Psychometrics and Scale Development, Mixed Methods Research, AI in Education, Post-Pandemic Student Engagement
Nick Balisciano is a veteran educator who leverages social cognitive theory, critical and institutional sociology, and mixed methods to reconceptualize and measure student agency, i.e., how students influence the nature and quality of their learning.
INTERESTS: Anthropology of Education, Immigrant Education, Ethnographic Methods, Migrant Youth
Ben Blanco is interested in how school and work experiences of high-school age, youth migrants before and after migration to the United States shape their aspirations. Ben uses ethnographic methods, including participant observation and interviews.
INTERESTS: Multilingualism, Educational Linguistics, Immigrant Education, Native Language Instruction, Language and Literacy Development
Bailey Buchanan studies multilingual language and literacy development in children and adolescents, particularly newcomers, in the U.S. context. She is interested in native language instruction and educational experiences that celebrate students’ linguistic resources.
INTERESTS: Philosophy of Education, Existentialism, Phenomenology Ethics, Philosophy with Children, Teacher and Student Agency, Teacher Education
Alex Chang is a Ph.D. student interested in studying the philosophy of education with a focus on questions of agency and ethics.
INTERESTS: Adolescent Development, Parenting, Social and Emotional Development, Mixed Methods
Yixuan Cui studies adolescent development and parenting, focusing on how social and cultural contexts shape parenting beliefs and practices. Her research explores how these factors support youth’s academic engagement, mental well-being, and preparation for adulthood.
INTERESTS: Early Childhood Education and Care, Policy, Social and Emotional Learning, Early Learning, Emotions, Systems Thinking
INTERESTS: Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, Cross-Cultural, Mixed Methods, Career Development
INTERESTS: Early Childhood, Bilingualism, Parenting, Developmental Psychology, International Education Policy, International Development, Cross-Cultural Research
Sandra El Hadi conducts mixed-methods research in English, French, and Arabic on how parents’ beliefs and practices shape children’s language outcomes, focusing on early childhood and multilingualism. She has strong experience in university teaching and international development.
INTERESTS: Early Childhood, Developmental Disabilities, Cognitive Neuroscience, Early Intervention, Special Education
Anne-Michelle Engelstad is researching neurodevelopmental trajectories of children with developmental differences and early intervention.
INTERESTS: Economics of Education, Data-Driven Decision-Making, Educational Aspirations, Higher Education Success, Education Technology, Development Economics
Joaquin Farina leverages causal inference to evaluate policies and gain insights into human behavior. His research explores the role of educational aspirations, data-driven improvement, barriers to higher education success, and AI’s potential to hyper-contextualize solutions.
INTERESTS: Applied Psychology, Social and Emotional Development, Early Childhood, Program Evaluation, Equity, Global Contexts
Sarah Farnsworth Hatch is interested in how interventions can promote children's social and emotional development. Programs and policies central to her work include poverty reduction efforts, parenting interventions, and social and emotional learning. She is particularly interested in quantitative methodologies and research based in lower and middle income countries.
INTERESTS: Teachers and Teaching, Education Equity, Sociology of Culture and Work, Qualitative Methods
Krista Galleberg studies the intersection of cultural sociology, sociology of work and the teaching profession. I’m interested in how teachers think about themselves and their work, and how research on the teaching profession can contribute to racial equity in education.
INTERESTS: Racial Bias, Experimental Research, Instruction, Pedagogy, Math Education, Teachers, Teaching
Jeannette Garcia Coppersmith's research examines mechanisms that contribute to racial-ethnic disparities in mathematics education. Her scholarly interests are at the intersection of teacher education, social psychology, and math education.
INTERESTS: History of Education, Migration, Comparative Education, Education Policy, National Development
Anthony Garciano researches the movement of ideas and people over time, examining how past and present global exchange initiatives and international education policies facilitate, and sometimes complicate, national development and transnational migration.
INTERESTS: Education Policy, Comparative and International Education, Qualitative Methods, Public Policy and Administration
Abhinav Ghosh studies the politics of education policy in low- and middle-income countries. His current research examines micro-level processes during policy implementation as well as the influence of private actors on public policies.
INTERESTS: Causal Inference, Statistics, Qualitative Methods, Education Policy, Psychometrics, Literacy
Josh Gilbert is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research interests include the intersection of psychometric and causal inference methods in education and the social sciences.
INTERESTS: Education Policy, Economics of Education, Teacher Effectiveness, School-based Health Interventions, Causal Inference, Capacity Building, Accountability
Karina Gómez’s research aims to identify tools and policies that strengthen capacity building in education systems to ultimately improve student outcomes and opportunities in low- and middle-income countries.
INTERESTS: Early Childhood, Social and Emotional Development, Classrooms, Pedagogy, Identity, Childhoods, Preschool
INTERESTS: Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, Cross-Cultural, Mixed Methods, International Student Affairs, Higher Education
Nigel Gray’s research focuses on how social pressures shape adolescents' higher education choices based on gender differences and cultural variances and its resulting impacts on adolescents’ sense of purpose, belonging, and developmental pathways.
INTERESTS: Education Policy, Organizational Change, Economics of Education, Teacher Effectiveness, School Governance, Policy Analysis,
INTERESTS: Higher Education, College Access, Equity, Critical Theory, Writing Pedagogy
INTERESTS: Sociology of Education, Race and Ethnicity, Qualitative Methods, Family Socialization, Gender, Critical Theory, Higher Education
Zora Haque is interested in how family socialization shapes the identity development and academic trajectories of South Asian American women. Her research focuses broadly on how daughterhood is linked to academic identity, self-concept, and achievement.
INTERESTS: Pedagogy, Philosophy, Teacher Education, Liberator, Justice, Equity
Justin Hauver hopes to surface how our pedagogies manifest our values, embody our fundamental stances towards existing in the world with others, and shape the kinds of people that students become alongside us.
INTERESTS: Economics of Education, Education Policy, Workforce Development
INTERESTS: Policy, Early Childhood Education, Teacher Labor Markets, Economics of Education, Causal Inference, Methodologies, School Finance, School Accountability
Katie Hyland is a Ph.D. student interested in the economics of education, teacher labor markets, early childhood education policy, and school finance.
INTERESTS: Sociology of Education, Institutional Reproduction, Institutional Change, Hidden Curriculum
INTERESTS: Black Education, Political Economy, Political and Historical Sociology, Black Studies, Carceral Studies
Ninah Jackson’s research broadly explores the political economy of race and schooling, black educational practices and traditions, and the ways black learners and educators prefigure liberatory educational possibilities within and beyond formal schooling structures.
INTERESTS: Language Development, Cognitive Development, Rural, Early Childhood, Adult-Child Interactions
Iris Jeffries is interested in how adult-child interactions in rural areas influence early childhood language and cognitive development.
INTERESTS: Education Policy, Economics of Education, Applied Econometrics, Labor Economics, Inequality Mobility, Machine Learning Methods
Sara Ji is a first year Ph.D. student and a presidential scholar at Harvard studying education policy and the economics of education. Her main research interests lie in applied econometrics, the economics of education, and labor economics, with a focus on inequality.
INTERESTS: Organizational Theory, Decision-Making, Computational Social Sciences, Text Analysis
Julie Jung studies education policy and program evaluation with a focus on how organizational theory and decision-making intersect in schools. Her research uses computational social science methods to understand how school leaders and systems shape school improvement.
INTERESTS: Economics of Education, Education Policy, Labor Economics, Causal Inference
Samantha Kane's research interests are in the economics of education and labor economics. Her work focuses on the policies and political developments that affect student and family investments in human capital and the workforce.
INTERESTS: Philosophy of Science, Epistemology, Indoctrination, Propaganda
Arham Kazi is focused on how we are affected by things unawares, and what we can do about it. Some questions include: What is the difference between education & indoctrination? What kind of education can orient us towards features of how our thoughts are shaped by the world?
INTERESTS: Quantitative Methods, Causal Inference, Program Evaluation, Policy Evaluation, Teacher Preparation, Teacher Quality, Teacher Development
Bri Kightlinger studies the policies and programs affecting the U.S. teacher workforce. Her research seeks to understand the mechanisms behind early career teachers' returns to experience.
INTERESTS: Math Education, Remedial Math Instruction, Educational Psychology, Secondary Education, Equity
Maddie Clark is interested in the psychological processes behind math learning and the ways in which we can harness those to lessen inequity and knowledge gaps in U.S. secondary classrooms.
INTERESTS: Early Childhood Development, Measurement, Causal Inference, Low and Middle Income Countries, Approaches to Learning, Early Interventions
Kenji Kitamura's work focuses on early childhood development (ECD) measurement and intervention issues from an international perspective. He is particularly interested in children's approaches to learning and mechanisms of long-term impact of early intervention.