Kat Adams was a doctoral student in the department of Applied Psychology. She received a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017 and completed her training in 2019. She currently serves a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. She is interested in how experience shapes children’s real-time self-regulation and learning processes, particularly in the context of social and environmental risk. A key aim of her research is to create and collaborate on innovative uses of technology and statistical methods for data collection, analysis, and intervention. 

Christine Baker-Smith was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2011 and completed the training program in 2015. She graduated from NYU with a PhD in Sociology of Education in 2017. She is currently the Research Director of the HOPE Center at Temple University. She holds an EdM from Teachers College, Columbia University, in Leadership, Policy and Politics, an MA Stanford University in the Social Science of Education, and a BA in Sociology from Whitman College. Her interests are in academic engagement/disengagement, transitions across educational structures such as from middle to high school and the delinquency that may manifest from unsuccessful transitions. Previously, Christy worked as the Program Coordinator and Research Assistant for the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences MA program at Columbia University. Christy’s research mentor was James Kemple and her academic adviser is Richard Arum.

Fabian Barch received a 4-year fellowship in 2016 and completed his training in 2020. He is PhD student in the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities at NYU Steinhardt. His current research interests include access to educational opportunity, and prison-based education programs. He earned his Bachelor's degree at Washington University in St. Louis in May 2016, double majoring in Education Studies and French with a minor in Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Jonathan Bearak was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. He completed the IES-PIRT program in 2013 and graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS in 2015. He is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Guttmacher Institute. He was also an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2013-2014 academic year. His research focuses on how adolescents' school experiences affect the life course. Studying education and stratification, some of his current projects look at the effects of accountability systems and standardized testing, or at the effects of status and deviance, on education and health outcomes. More generally, Jonathan's research interests include stratification, education, family, quantitative methods, demography, and organizations. His dissertation title is “Heterogenous treatment effects or heterogenous treatments? Educational attainment and earnings inequality.” Paula England was Jonathan’s adviser; Jennifer Jennings was his IES-PIRT research mentor.

Juliette Berg was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2011 and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology NYU Steinhardt in 2013. She is currently a Senior Researcher at American Institutes for Research (AIR). She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses onschool-based and community-based prevention programming in low-income neighborhoods; contextual influences on children’s social-emotional adjustment; social and educational policies. Her dissertation, titled “An Ecological Approach to Assessing School Climate and Its Relationship to Academic Processes and Outcomes,” examine key dimensions of school settings obtained from multiple perspectives in the context of a whole-school social-emotional and literacy intervention and their impact on child academic and social-emotional outcomes. Larry Aber was Juliette’s adviser and Pamela Morris-Perez was her IES-PIRT mentor.

Kristin Black received a 2-year fellowship in 2016  and completed her training in 2019. She was a doctoral student in the department of Teaching and Learning. She was also an NYU PIRT fellow from 2013-2016. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she taught developmental reading and writing at Chicago’s Truman College and high school English throughout Virginia. Her current research interests include postsecondary literacy, transitions from high school to college, reading/writing connections, and the relationship between student identity and academic reading tasks. She also serves on the board of directors for NYC education nonprofit Change for Kids. Kristin received her BA and MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Virginia. Her adviser was Michael Kieffer and her mentor was James Kemple.

Jessica Boccardo was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program and graduated from the NYU Wagner School in 2013. She is currently working as a consultant in the public sector at the Boston Consulting Group. Her primary areas of interest are education policy analysis and quantitative methods. Jessica is particularly interested in understanding the links between education, innovation and the role of public policy, particularly in developing countries. Her dissertation title is “Inside the ‘black-box’ of schools: Empirical evidence on the different dimensions of learning.” Prior to NYU she worked at the Evaluation Office (OVE) at the Inter-American Development Bank and the Poverty Reduction Unit (PMRED) at the World Bank and received a Master in Public Policy with a concentration on International Development from Georgetown University. Her IES-PIRT research mentor was Amy Schwartz.

Tim Carroll is a doctoral student in the Higher Education program in the Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology at NYU Steinhardt. He received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017 and completed his training in 2021. His interests center on college access and equity, including the educational pathways of English learners and students from immigrant and refugee families. Before coming to NYU, he worked as a college access adviser with College Possible Minnesota, a need-based financial aid administrator at Williams College, and a data curator at the Inter-university Consortium for Political & Social Research (ICPSR). He has a BA in American Studies from Carleton College and an MA in Higher Education from the University of Michigan. His adviser is Stella Flores.

Vanessa Coca was awarded a 4-year fellowship in 2011. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NYU Steinhardt, and a Research Fellow at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools. Her work focuses on college access, choice, and completion for traditionally underrepresented college students. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Vanessa worked at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, where she contributed to a series of highly regarded reports on Chicago Public School students’ transitions to college. She received an M.P.P. and a B.A. degree from the University of Chicago. Vanessa’s advisers are Richard Arum and James Kemple.

Rachel Cole was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2013 and graduated from the International Education program in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NYU Steinhardt in 2015. She is currently a Research Associate at the Research Alliance for New York City Schools at NYU. She is interested in intergenerational transfer of educational attainment and school quality measurement in Sri Lankan education. She taught for six years and was an administrator in NYC schools for two years, completing a MS in Education at Bank Street and in Educational Administration at Baruch. In her apprenticeship with Jim Kemple of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools she did an evaluation of School of One and worked on analyses of the NYC Schools Survey and the Achievement Reporting and Inovation System (ARIS).

Maia Connors was awarded a 4-year fellowship in 2011. She graduated from the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2015. She is currently a Senior Research Associate for Research and Policy Initiatives at the Ounce of Prevention Fund. Her research interests include early childhood education policy, large-scale systems' support of high quality early education and teachers' professional growth, and adults' support of young children's development. One of Maia's current projects focuses on identifying and understanding features of Head Start centers that are associated with variation in program impacts on key child outcomes. Originally from Rhode Island, Maia received her A.B. in sociology and education studies from Brown University in 2007. After graduating, she spent several years in San Francisco as a Research Assistant at WestEd, a non-profit education research organization, designing and implementing programs and resources to support high quality preschool throughout California. Maia's adviser and research mentor was Pamela Morris-Perez.

Sarah Cordes was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2014 and graduated from the NYU Wagner School in 2015. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Temple University. Sarah's research and teaching interests are in education and urban policy, housing, public finance, and applied statistics and econometrics. Sarah's current research focuses on the spillover effects of NYC charter schools on nearby public school students, the effects of residential and school mobility on student performance, and how changes in school resources influence parents' investments in their children's education. Sarah is a recent recipient of the C. Lowell Harris Dissertation Fellowship awarded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and was selected as a finalist for the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship. Sarah received her MPP from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University in 2010, with a concentration in social policy. Prior to attending Duke, Sarah spent two years teaching middle school math in Washington, DC as part of AmeriCorps. Sarah's adviser and IES-PIRT mentor was Amy Ellen Schwartz.

Travis Cramer was a 4-year fellow in the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. His research focused on teacher workforce development, children’s social-emotional development, and program implementation and quality improvement. Travis works with Pamela Morris-Perez and Elise Cappella on multiple research projects aimed to support workforce development and preschool quality within New York City’s universal preschool expansion. Travis also works closely with a large nonprofit service provider to identify how children's and families’ needs for services vary across communities in New York City. Travis graduated from Dartmouth College magna cum laude with a degree in Anthropology. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Travis taught elementary school and worked as a research assistant on projects studying kindergarten readiness and mindfulness interventions.

Chelsea Daniels is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS. Her dissertation research examines the causes and consequences of digital inequality with a particular focus on education. Other research interests include criminal justice, school discipline and the role of technology in punishment. She received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017. Chelsea received her BA from Oberlin College in Visual Art with minors in Mathematics and African American Studies. She worked in the music industry as a talent buyer and event producer before completing a MS in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research at NYU Steinhardt. 

Tingting Ding received a one-year NYU PIRT fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year. She graduated from the Department of Economics at NYU GSAS in 2015. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Her research applies game theory and experimental economics in the design of market. Her current project is to examine how the communication among students influences their decisions and welfare in various school choice mechanisms. She is in particular interested in whether school choice program provides equal access to all students and whether the strategies that students use in school choice are different with respect to their socioeconomics status. Before starting at NYU, Tingting earned her BA and MS degrees in engineering at Tsinghua University, and her MA degree in economics at Rutgers University. Her adviser and research mentor was Andrew Schotter.

M. Paula Daneri received a 2-year fellowship in 2016 and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2018. She is currently an SRCD Policy Fellow. Her research interests include executive function development in early childhood, particularly in Latino dual language learners, and its associations with school readiness. At NYU, she worked with Dr. Clancy Blair on several projects examining the links between language and executive function in the preschool and early elementary school years, and working with Drs. Pamela Morris-Perez and Cybele Raver on a project to support the research infrastructure behind New York City's Universal Pre-K Program. Paula received her B.A. in psychology from Duke University and spent two years doing early childhood education research at a non-profit research organization focusing on early childhood education interventions before coming to NYU. 

Syeda Sana Fatima (Sana) received a 4-year fellowship in 2016 and was a PhD student at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She was a Graduate Assistant at the Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP) where she is exploring the effects of student and neighborhood characteristics in shaping the special populations, in particular students with a disabilities, at the national and New York City-level. Her research interests lie at the intersection of education, health and labor economics. Prior to joining NYU, she worked as a researcher at the John J. Heldrich Center for Labor and Workforce Development (Rutgers University), as an analyst at Abt Associates Inc. and as an Economic and Community Development Research Assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Economics from New York University (NYU). Her adviser and research mentor was Leanna Stiefel. She currently works as a Researcher for Learning Supports program at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). 

Karly Ford was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2012 and graduated from the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NYU Steinhardt in 2013. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Penn State University. Karly’s research questions focus on the relationship between schooling and social stratification. How do educational institutions perpetuate or interrupt patterns of inequality? Looking beyond our national obsession with test scores, what other social outcomes do schools produce? How can we thoughtfully and precisely measure school related indicators? Her dissertation, titled “Seeking their Own Kind: Educational Homogamy 1975-2009,” focuses on educational homogamy. Karly is tracking how educational credentialing is quickly becoming a social boundary with strong influence, not only in the labor market, but also the marital market. Her research interests also include causal quantitative methodologies, especially as they are used to influence educational policy decisions. Her adviser and IES-PIRT research mentor was Richard Arum.

Allison Friedman-Krauss was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2014 and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in 2015. She is currently an Assistant Research Professor in the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. Her research interests include the impacts of early childhood education programs and interventions on children's development in cognitive, social-emotional, and self-regulation domains. Allison has worked on projects about the bidirectional influences between child behavior problems, classroom quality, and teacher stress in preschool classrooms. She worked on projects examining different types of instability in children's school and ECE settings on school readiness skills and academic achievement. She is involved in work on the reanalysis of the Head Start Impact Study, focusing on the role of classroom quality. Allison is also interested in poverty-related risk as it relates to children's experiences in school and school success. She is interested in the policy implications of her work. Allison is originally from Long Island, NY, and worked at the National Institute for Early Education Research before coming to NYU. She has a B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Allison's research mentors were Cybele Raver and Pamela Morris-Perez.

Spenser Gwozdzik is a doctoral student at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and a doctoral fellow at the NYU Furman Center. He received an IES-PIRT fellowship in 2018 and in 2021. He is interested in the ways that education and housing policy interact in the urban environment with a particular focus on the educational outcomes of students living in subsidized housing. He has an AB in Public Policy from Duke University and an AM in Urban Education policy from Brown University. Prior to attending NYU, he spent three years working as a research associate with the Tennessee State Board of Education, where he primarily focused on teacher preparation and related issues.

Sarah Kabay received a 2-year fellowship in 2016 and was student in the International Development Education program in the Department of Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities at NYU Steinhardt. She was also an NYU PIRT student from 2013-2016. Sarah's work focuses on primary schooling, early childhood, and how education fits into greater development and social change frameworks. Before beginning her doctoral program, Sarah lived in Uganda for five years working with Innovations for Poverty Action. Her research has a primary focus on Uganda, where she collaborates with schools, NGOs, local government and other education stakeholders to conduct her projects and disseminate findings. Sarah is also a Research Affiliate of the Global TIES for Children Research Center and a recipient of the Additional Insights International Research Fellowship. Her dissertation analyzes grade repetition, the rise of low cost private primary schools, and the costs association with attending school in the context of Uganda’s Universal Primary Education. Additional projects include qualitative analysis of parents’ attitudes towards preschool in peri-urban Accra, the psychometric analysis of Save the Children’s early childhood assessment instrument, and the cost-benefit analysis of Boston’s public prekindergarten program. She received her B.A. in Poverty and Development from Yale University. Dr. Hirokazu Yoshikawa was her adviser and research mentor. Sarah currently serves Education Program Director for Innovations for Poverty Action.

Jill Gandhi was a student in the Developmental Psychology program and received a 4-year fellowship in 2016. Jill worked with Dr. Cybele Raver as part of the Neuroscience and Education Lab. She is broadly interested in examining home- and school-based inputs on early childhood educational development, particularly to inform interventions with low-income families. Prior to attending NYU, Jill worked at the University of Chicago’s Behavioral Insights and Parenting Lab, where she coordinated parenting interventions in Head Start centers. Additionally, Jill taught Algebra at a public school in Jackson, Mississippi. She received her B.A. in Plan II Honors and Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Jill is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. 

Justina Kamiel Grayman was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2013 and was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2013-2014 academic year. She graduated from the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2015. After graduating from NYU, Justina founded the Degrees of Freedom Research Program for High School and Undergraduate Students. Justina's research interests include community empowerment, community organizing (especially education organizing), and collective action. Specifically, she is interested in how social contexts impact people's attitudes about social justice and their propensity to engage in collective action. In her dissertation, she worked with parent organizing groups in New York City to examine organizing strategies that are most effective at mobilizing parents to fight for public education reform in New York City. Justina's faculty mentor is Dr. Erin Godfrey.

Chantal Hailey received a 2-year fellowship in 2016 and completed her IES-PIRT training in 2018. Chantal’s research focuses on the experiences of low-income children of color in their residential and educational settings and how these social contexts affect long-term outcomes and social stratification patterns. Her current research explores how an adolescent’s neighborhood occupational structure relates to their adult occupational attainment, examines the “school-to-prison pipeline” by estimating the effect of out-of-school suspensions on the likelihood of adult incarceration, and, in collaboration with the Research Alliance for New York City Schools, explores how families navigate the New York high school application process and the relationship between school choice and school safety, violence, and disorder. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Chantal was a Research Associate under Dr. Susan Popkin, Dr. Rolf Pendall, and Dr. Marla McDaniels at the Urban Institute. While at Urban, her research centered on youth and low-income housing policies and she collaborated on the Choice Neighborhood Demonstration Evaluation, Promoting Adolescent Sexual Health and Safety Community Based Participatory Research Project, the D.C. Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, and the Long Term Outcomes for Chicago Public Housing Resident Study. Ms. Hailey was a student fellow in the Urban Institute’s Academy and a Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement scholar. Chantal received her B.A. Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in Sociology from Howard University. Dr. Jennifer Jennings was her IES-PIRT adviser and research mentor. Chantal is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jessica Harding graduated from the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2016. She is currently a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research.  She received one-year NYU PIRT fellowships for the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years. She received her BA from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2009. Jess is interested in applying research to social policy to improve educational outcomes for low-income children. Her research explores the intergenerational transmission of educational achievement and attainment with a focus on two distinct, but related, influences on children’s academic outcomes – parenting practices and maternal education. Her research takes two main forms: a) secondary data analysis to understand these influences, and b) intervention research that aims to improve children’s academic outcomes by changing the family context. Jess's dissertation work aims to understand the influence of maternal education on children’s academic outcomes. She also works on a formative evaluation of a pilot dual-generation intervention that provides education and training to the parents of children enrolled in a New York City Head Start Program. Finally, Jess works with an interdisciplinary team including her adviser and research mentor, Pamela Morris-Perez, on launching an innovative primary and secondary/tertiary intervention to promote school readiness in very young children in low-income families through using the pediatric primary care platform to enhance positive parenting practices. She received the Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Graduate Student Fellowship from APA and the Mitchell Leaska Dissertation Research Award from NYU Steinhardt in 2015 and worked with Dr. Morris-Perez on a parenting intervention for 0-3 year olds in the pediatric primary care platform.

Laura Hawkinson was a visiting fellow at New York University through the Institute of Education Sciences Pre-Doctoral Fellowshop, and she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Education Policy program at the University of Pennsylvania. As a visiting fellow, Ms. Hawkinson is working with Dr. Pamela Morris-Perez on a new research institute at MDRC that will test the most promising early childhood education interventions in New York City preschools. Ms. Hawkinson’s research interests are focused on the effectiveness of early childhood education programs and policies, particularly for disadvantaged children. Her dissertation research investigates the effects of child care subsidies on child development. Previously, Ms. Hawkinson conducted research on state-funded pre-kindergarten programs at the National Institute for Early Education Research, and worked on several Head Start studies as an analyst at Mathematica Policy Research. She has also taught in an early education program for homeless children, and worked as a long-term volunteer in a Head Start classroom. She holds an M.P.A. from Columbia University with specialization in social policy.

Bryant Hopkins received a 4-year fellowship in 2015 and was student in the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Bryant was a Graduate Assistant at the Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP) where he explored the effects of recent policy reforms for special education students in New York City public schools. He graduated as an Honors Scholar with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He majored in mathematics and received minors in physics, economics, music, and Spanish. He holds a Master of Arts degree from Duke University with a major in economics. Bryant was presented with the Duke Economics Department Leadership Award at the May 2015 graduation ceremony. At Duke, Bryant was a research assistant in the Economics Department and served as principal cellist of the Duke Symphony Orchestra during his tenure in Durham. For the past several summers, he worked for Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski as a graduate fellow and staff assistant in both her Washington, D.C. and Fairbanks, Alaska offices. His adviser and research mentor was Leanna Stiefel. Bryant is currently a post-doctoral research associate at Michigan State University. 

E. Parham Horn received a 4-year fellowship in 2015 and was a student in the Counseling Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt, studying under the mentorship of Dr. Sandee McClowry. She worked on the middle school follow-up study of INSIGHTS, a temperament-based intervention that was delivered to parents, teachers, and children when the children were in kindergarten and first grade. She is interested in research related to child development in the context of poverty, teacher-­child and parent­-child relationships and interactions, and interventions focused on improving social and academic outcomes for low-­income children. In her clinical work, she is currently training in behavioral parent training strategies for parents of children with disruptive behavior disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Prior to attending NYU, she worked as a research assistant at MDRC, a non­profit social policy research organization, helping to implement and evaluate two large ­scale randomized controlled trials for low­ income preschool children. She was also a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development where she studied parent­-child interactions from infancy to young adulthood. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Georgetown University, graduating magna cum laude.

Keren Horn was awarded a 1-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2011. She completed the IES-PIRT program and graduated from New York University with a Ph.D. in Public Policy in 2012. Her primary areas of interest are neighborhood change and the intersecting roles of housing policy and school policy. Keren's dissertation, titled “Essays on Housing Policy, Schools and Neighborhood Change,” analyzes how school accountability reforms and information about school quality shape neighborhoods. Keren is currently an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at UMass Boston. Her advisers were Ingrid Ellen, Amy Schwartz and Katherine O’Regan.

Sophia Hwang was a doctoral student in the Psychology and Social Intervention Program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. She received a 3-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2014 and a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017; Dr. Elise Cappella and Dr. Michael Kieffer were her mentors. As a former high school science teacher, Sophia’s research interests lie at the intersection of education and mental health. Sophia aims to conduct policy-relevant research that improves academic and social-emotional outcomes for urban students, learning contexts both in and out of school, and educator professional development. Sophia studies best practices in the afterschool setting. This includes the usage of social network analyses to examine changes in peer relations over time and qualitative methods to understand the experiences of the afterschool workforce. Additionally, Sophia’s research leverages large-scale national datasets and quasi-experimental methods to examine the influence of educational practices and supportive relationships on adolescent outcomes. She has published research in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, and Behavioral Medicine. Sophia earned her bachelor's from Stanford University and masters from the University of Pennsylvania. Sophia is an Assistant Professor of Community Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland.

Daisy R. Jackson was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2008 and another 2-year fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2012 and graduated from the Counseling Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinardt in 2013. She is currently a Clinical Psychologist at the Reed Center. Daisy’s research focuses on bridging mental health and education, with specific attention to the effects of students’ executive function and behavior difficulties on overall classroom processes. She was an extern at the NYU Child Study Center where she does neuropsychological evaluations with children and therapy with parents and children with oppositional defiant disorder. Her dissertation title is “Exploring the Social Dynamics of Peer Aggression in Middle Childhood.” Jacqueline Mattis was her adviser and Elise Cappella was her IES-PIRT research mentor.

Ha Yeon Kim was awarded a one-year NYU PIRT fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year. She graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2014. She is currently Associate Director for Programs in Conflict-Affected Countries at Global TIES. She was formerly a Postdoctoral Fellow in Education at Harvard University. Her NYU-PIRT adviser and research mentor was Dr. Elise Cappella. Ha Yeon’s research investigates the role of school and classroom contexts in children’s academic and social-emotional development. Specifically, her work has focused on understanding academic engagement of low-income immigrant-origin students in urban school contexts. In addition to her three-study dissertation project, titled “Academic Engagement of Immigrant Origin Children in Linguistically Diverse Urban Schools,” Ha Yeon worked on a project that examined the impact of school transitions on youth adjustment in a national sample, under the guidance of Dr. Elise Cappella and Dr. Edward Seidman. Ha Yeon received her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology and Child Development from Seoul National University, Republic of Korea.

Jeannie Kim was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2014 and graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS in 2017. She is currently an Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Education Policy & Social Analysis at the Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include education, race, and stratification. Before starting her doctoral program at NYU, she taught middle school mathematics in Brooklyn as a New York City Teaching Fellow and worked as a program coordinator for the Education Research Program at the Social Science Research Council. Her dissertation is tentatively titled, "Racial Mix and Match in Schools: How Student Race and School Racial Composition Influence Teachers' Perceptions and Expectations of Student Success." She received her BA in History from Brown University and her M.Ed in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her adviser is Florencia Torche and her IES-PIRT research mentor was Richard Arum.

Johanna Lacoe was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2012 and graduated from the NYU Wagner School in 2012. She is currently a Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. Her dissertation, titled “The Causes and Consequences of Crime and Disorder in Urban Schools and Neighborhoods,” examines the impact of neighborhood crime and contact with the juvenile justice system on youth outcomes. Johanna was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Housing at the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate/ USC Price School of Public Policy. Her adviser was Ingrid Ellen and her IES-PIRT research mentor was Patrick Sharkey.

Agustina Laurito was awarded a 3-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2013 and completed the training program in 2016. She is currently a doctoral student at the NYU Wagner School and a Graduate Assistant at the Institute for Education and Social Policy. She received her Master in Public Policy from Duke University where she focused on global policy issues. After graduating in 2011, Agustina stayed at Duke working a research assistant as part of a project called "Beyond Test Scores: Schooling and Life-Course Outcomes in Early Adulthood." Agustina is originally from Argentina where she majored in Political Science, and worked in higher education administration. Her research interests include the interplay between social and education policy, and how students' non-school environments affect their academic and non-academic outcomes. Her adviser is Amy Ellen Schwartz.

Jake Leos-Urbel was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2018. He completed the IES-PIRT program and graduated from the NYU Wagner School in 2012. Jake’s research interests focus on education, and child and youth policy. His dissertation title is “Looking Beyond the Classroom: Understanding Broader Efforts to Promote Children’s Education and Development.” After graduating from NYU, Jake accepted a position as Assistant Professor, Public Policy at the Claremont Graduate University in California. He is currently Associate Director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University. His adviser and IES-PIRT research mentor was Amy Ellen Schwartz.

Nick Mark received a 4-year fellowship in 2016 and is a PhD student in Sociology at NYU GSAS. He is interested in education, inequality, stratification, social networks, and the organization of schooling. He received his B.A. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University in 2011, and went on to teach middle school in New Orleans from 2011-2015. Nick then returned to school to complete an MA in Politics and Education with Prof. Jeffrey Henig at Teachers College, Columbia University, before matriculating at NYU. He is currently working with Jennifer Jennings and Sean Corcoran to examine the effect of school choice on student mobility, the role of social networks in school choice, and the relationship between data use and teacher collaborative networks. organizations.

Meghan McCormick was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2014 and graduated from the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2015. She is currently a Research Associate at MDRC. Originally from New Jersey, Meghan received her A.B. in public and international affairs from Princeton University in 2007. After graduating, she spent three years as a research assistant at MDRC, a non-profit social policy research organization, working to implement and evaluate a large-scale randomized trial of a relationship education intervention. Using rigorous quantitative methods, Meghan's research examines how interpersonal relationships and social processes influence students' academic and social-emotional development. Her dissertation, entitled “Insights into Social-Emotional Learning and Achievement: An Approach for Strengthening Causal Inference,” uses a range of rigorous methods to evaluate mechanisms and heterogeneity of impacts of the INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament intervention. In addition to working as the data manager and co-investigator on the INSIGHTS project, Meghan works with Dr. Elise Cappella on the Friend project, using social network analysis to understand the role of peer relationships in classrooms and schools and with Dr. Erin O’Connor on a project examining effects of student-teacher relationships on student outcomes in middle childhood and early adolescence. Meghan was recently awarded a National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship and an APF Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Dissertation Fellowship. Meghan's research mentor was Erin O'Connor and her adviser was Elise Cappella.

Dana Charles McCoy was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2011. She completed the IES program and graduated from the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2013. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Education at Harvard University. Dana's interests focus on exploring the relationships between environmental and biological risk factors and young children's positive development, both in the United States and internationally. Dana’s dissertation was titled “Child Self-Regulation in the Context of Poverty-Related Environmental Risk” and explored the ways that low-income children's exposure to family instability and community violence affects their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional self-regulatory skills. Dana is also interested the use of experimental and quasi-experimental methods for the evaluation of early childhood interventions, programs, and policies. She received her A.B. in Psychological and Brain Sciences from Dartmouth College. Her advisers at NYU were Cybele Raver and Pamela Morris-Perez.

Zachary T. McDermott was a doctoral student at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. He received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017. Zac’s broad interests focus on using quantitative methodology in education policy research, with an aim to identify and understand inequity for disadvantaged populations including women in STEM, LGBTQ+ and gender minorities, and students with disabilities (SWDs). An encompassing commonality of several ongoing research projects is to understand students as they transition between schools/academic environments. Recent, co-authored work published in Science explores the gender gap in Physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS) major selection, finding low-achieving men are majoring in PECS more than women (at any performance level) and this cannot be explained by an extensive set of student-level factors. Other ongoing research includes: using an RD design to investigate differential consequences of high school exit exams on educational attainment by special education status, descriptively exploring variation in special education across schools in Massachusetts, investigating what differentially explains career interest and college majoring decisions by gender and sexual orientation, and studying the effect of STEM high school programs in NYC on student outcomes. Many of these aforementioned projects were in collaboration with advisors Leanna Stiefel (NYU Wagner) and Joseph Cimpian (NYU Steinhardt). Zac was formerly the Sr. Associate of Research and Data Management at the Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP) where his breadth of work aimed to understand how in and out of school factors influence academic performance, attendance, meal participation, and student health— work with Amy Ellen Schwartz, Meryle Weinstein, and Brian Elbel. He earned his B.A. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2013 and his M.A. in Applied Quantitative Research from NYU Graduate School of the Arts and Sciences (GSAS) the following year. Zac is a Senior Analyst at Abt Associates. 

Karen McFadden was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2008. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2010 and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2012. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education/Art Education at CUNY Brooklyn College. Karen’s dissertation title is: “The Nature and Correlates of Low-Income Fathers’ Involvement with Their Children: Associations to Children’s Pre-Academic School Readiness Skills.” She is currently an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education and Art Education at CUNY Brooklyn College. Her adviser was Catherine Tamis-Lemonda and Pamela Morris-Perez was her IES-PIRT mentor.

Rachel McKinnon was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2014-2015 academic year and was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2015. She completed the training program and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in NYU Steinhardt in 2017. She is currently a Congressional Branch Policy Fellow at SRCD. Her research interests focus on understanding the development of children’s self-regulation and executive functions as school readiness skills, particularly among children from low-income families. She is also interested in the extent to which children’s social relationships with parents, teachers, and peers are interrelated with the development of self-regulation. Under the guidance of her adviser, Clancy Blair, Rachel is currently examining the extent to which children’s individual self-regulations abilities are related to the quality of relationships they form with their teachers across primary school. Rachel's dissertation is titled: "Examining the Development of Executive Function, Teacher-Child Relationships, and Academic Achievement among Children in the Early Elementary Grades." Rachel received her B.S. in Family Studies and Human Development from Arizona State University and her M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College.

Joseph Mullins graduated from the Department of Economics at NYU GSAS in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics at Western University in Ontario, Canada. He received a 1-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2014-2015 and a second 1-year fellowship in 2015. He holds a BA in Mathematics and a BA in Economics from The University of Queensland. His research interests lie in the modelling and identification of causal mechanisms through which early childhood environments shape adult outcomes. A key component of his research program is to analyze how particular policy interventions can remediate the family environment and provide future returns in human capital. For example, one of his current projects aims to evaluate the design of welfare programs in the United States as well as the likely impact of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Previously, Joseph specialized in the application of theoretical models of the labor market to survey data in order to address relevant policy problems. His research mentor was Christopher Flinn.

Robin Neuhaus is a doctoral student studying Early Childhood and Childhood Education in the Department of Teaching & Learning at NYU Steinhardt. She received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017. Broadly, her research interests include teacher and parent-child relationships and child anxiety disorders in early childhood. She is currently working on the INSIGHTS middle school follow-up study examining the impacts of a social emotional intervention implemented in kindergarten and first grade. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and a minor in Children's Studies. Prior to NYU, she worked as an English teacher in Madrid in a preschool and primary school. Dr. Erin O'Connor is her advisor and research mentor.

Kaitlyn O’Hagan is a doctoral student at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. Kaitlyn’s broad interests are education finance and policy, and her current work focuses on: (1) how policy differentially impacts students with disabilities and (2) the determinants and impacts of school infrastructure investments. Her research advisor is Leanna Stiefel. Prior to attending NYU, Kaitlyn was a Senior Financial Analyst at the New York City Council, where she was responsible for analyzing and reporting on the City’s $33 billion Department of Education expense budget and the $50 billion citywide capital budget. Kaitlyn earned her MPA from the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at CUNY Baruch and her BA in History from the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Hunter. For more information about Kaitlyn, visit her personal website: www.kaitlynohagan.com. Kaitlyn completed her training in 2023. 

Olga Pagán is a doctoral student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. She received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017. Her current research interests include teacher racial bias and teacher well-being in context, and how teachers and schools can create equitable environments for racially diverse children. Previously, Olga graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Psychology and from Stanford University with an M.A. in Elementary Education with a certificate in Bilingual Education. After earning her teaching credentials, Olga was a teacher and instructional coach in Denver.

Doreet Rebecca Preiss was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2012 and was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2013-2014 academic year. She graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS in 2017. She is currently a consultant. Doreet's research focuses on students' perceptions of their teachers' authority, and how these perceptions impact educational outcomes. Her dissertation title is “Questioning School Authority-How Race Class and Gender Mediate Student Perceptions of Teacher Authority.” With Richard Arum, she is currently working on a manuscript that explores student understandings of their due process rights and their associations with students' perceptions of school disciplinary climates. Richard Arum was her IES-PIRT research adviser and Lawrence Wu was her IES-PIRT mentor.

Jason Rarick was a doctoral student in the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. He was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2014-2015 academic year and was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2015. He completed his training in 2017 and is expected to graduate from NYU in 2018. Broadly, Jason's research focuses on understanding how youths’ experiences of social and economic inequality influence their well-being and educational outcomes. Much of his research is driven by the following questions. First, how do rising disparities in school settings affect students' thoughts and feelings about their own education? Second, how do the psychosocial factors important for educational success (e.g. social comparison, academic identity, and attributions) help explain the relationship between inequality and education? Finally, how can a better understanding of these psychological factors be leveraged to generate useable knowledge for informing the interventions, policies, and practices targeting more equitable educational opportunities and outcomes? Originally from Los Angeles, California, Jason spent three years working with two non-profits, School on Wheels and the Los Angeles Youth Network, providing educational resources to homeless youth. He later received his masters in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin before coming to New York. Jason’s adviser and research mentor is Dr. Erin Godfrey

Emily Rauscher was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2011 and graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU Steinhardt in 2012. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on Stratification, Education, and Adolescence. Her dissertation, titled “Can expansion equalize opportunity? Educational expansion and intergenerational mobility 1850-1930,” explores the relationship between compulsory schooling and social mobility at the turn of the century. Following multiple cohorts over time, it questions the link between educational attainment and labor market outcomes as a given level of education becomes nearly universal. Dalton Conley was Emily’s adviser and Florencia Torche was her IES-PIRT research mentor.

Andrew Ribner was a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. He was awarded a 3-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2014 and completed the training program in 2017. Before starting at NYU, he received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Educational Psychology and Learning Theory, Biology, and Psychology, and worked in the Cognitive Development Labs under Dr. Anna Shusterman. Andrew now works in the Neuroscience and Education Lab under Dr. Clancy Blair and his current research focus is on individual differences in early mathematical and numerical development across socioeconomic status, and their interplay with self regulation. His adviser and research mentor is Clancy Blair.

Peter Rich graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Policy Analysis and Management with a courtesy appointment in Sociology at Cornell University. He received a 1-year NYU PIRT fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year and a 1-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2015, and was also an NYU PIRT affiliate for the Spring 2014 semester. His research investigates how selection in school, housing, and marriage markets reproduces structural inequalities by race and class. In his dissertation, Peter finds that white parents are particularly likely to avoid neighborhoods with racially diverse schools, which has exacerbated residential segregation in the post-Civil Rights era. One chapter provides micro-level causal evidence of white parental flight and avoidance in response to mandated school district desegregation. Additional chapters analyze contemporary household sorting in the context of local school racial composition, expenditures, test performance, and neighborhood demographics. Previously, Peter coordinated a college-readiness math intervention program at a Richmond, CA community-based organization and taught mathematics as a visiting instructor in Lucknow, India. Peter received his B.A. in Sociology from U.C. Berkeley in 2004. His adviser and research mentor was Florencia Torche.

Natalia Rojas received a 2-year fellowship in 2016 and completed her IES-PIRT training in 2018. She was a doctoral candidate in the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt and expects to graduate in 2019. She received an NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship for 2018-2019. Previously, Natalia received her BA from New York University. After graduating, she worked at MDRC, a non-profit social policy research organization, as a research associate, working to implement and evaluate two large-scale randomized control trials of early childhood interventions focused on social-emotional and math skills in low-income preschoolers. Broadly, her research interests include the intersection between research and social policy, specifically early childhood education, teacher professional development, and designing and testing interventions at improving these settings and informing policy. As an IES-PIRT fellow, Natalia worked with Hiro Yoshikawa.

Sarah Rosenbach received a 4-year fellowship in 2016 and is a PhD student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. Her current research interests include health and academic disparities faced by LGBTQ adolescents and school-based policies and programs focused on sexual orientation and gender identity. She has also contributed to measurement development work for the Ministry of Education of Colombia. In addition to her academic pursuits, Sarah sits on the volunteer board of the New York City chapter of GLSEN, a national nonprofit that works to ensure safe schools for all students, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary mentor is Dr. Hiro Yoshikawa.

Erin Cocke Roth was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program and graduated from the Sociology of Education program in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NYU Steinardt in 2011. Erin is currently a Researcher at AIR. Her primary areas of interest are education policy analysis and quantitative methods. Her interest in education policy was cultivated while she was a public school teacher in North Carolina, teaching in both kindergarten and Head Start classrooms. Her dissertation, titled “Teachers & Accountability: Impacts on Teacher Practice and Sorting,” focuses on schools as organizations and teacher career paths. Sean Corcoran was Erin’s adviser and Marc Scott was her IES-PIRT research mentor. 

Michah W. Rothbart graduated from the NYU Wagner School in 2016. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He was awarded a 4-year fellowship in 2011 and a 2-year fellowship in 2015. Michah's research interests lie in education policy, financial management and public finance, particularly in resource allocation in education funding. For example, one of his current works in progress explores the financial implications of increased high school choice in New York City, examining the effects of competition on the level and mix of school expenditures. Michah previously served as the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Office of Postsecondary Readiness in the N.Y.C. Department of Education and before that as an Oak Ridge Fellow in the U.S. Department of Commerce: Economic Development Administration. He received a Master of Public Administration from Cornell University concentrating in Finance and Fiscal Policy. Michah’s research mentor was Amy Schwartz.

Jacob Schatz was a doctoral student in the Development Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. He received a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2017. Jacob works with Dr. Catherine Tamis-LeMonda and Dr. Natalie Brito, investigating how parents and children play together in their everyday lives, and how those interactions relate to children's learning outcomes and parents' experiences of stress.

Kate Schwartz, MPP, was a doctoral student in the Psychology & Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. She was also an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years and received a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2015. She completed her training in 2017 and is expected to graduate from NYU in 2018. Her research centers on how systems, policy, and social interventions broadly - and educational settings specifically - can better promote youth engagement and development for those growing up in under resourced, low-income environments. Within this, she is currently examining the role of teacher ecology (teachers’ skills, abilities and knowledge; poverty, stress and health; and structural, cultural, and personal supports and barriers to teaching) on school quality and the effectiveness of educational interventions within resource deprived settings. Kate has also been working in collaboration with Publicolor, a nonprofit organization in NYC, to evaluate the impact on student learning and engagement as a result of transforming the school environment through bright, student-designed paint makeovers. Kate received her A.B. in English from Brandeis University in 2004, where she studied creative writing, women’s studies, and domestic violence and created and led a writing workshop for survivors of childhood trauma. After her undergraduate, she spent six years working in direct social services and program administration in San Francisco; Santiago, Chile; and New York City around issues of homelessness and sexual/physical abuse. In 2012, she received her Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago, Harris School. Kate’s adviser and research mentor was Elise Cappella.

Menbere Shiferaw is a currently a doctoral student at NYU Wagner and a Graduate Assistant at the Institute for Education and Social Policy. She was awarded a 3-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2014 and completed the training program in 2017. Her research aims to inform policy and practice to better serve special populations, in particular immigrant students and students with disabilities. She is broadly interested in understanding and promoting the educational and labor market outcomes of these students.  Prior to joining NYU she was a research assistant and labor market analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Menbere received her BA in economics from the University of Georgia and MA in economics from Syracuse University. Her adviser and is Leanna Stiefel.

Daniel Daewon Suh was a doctoral candidate in the Developmental Psychology Program in the department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt. Daniel's research interest is in understanding how children’s early social interactions and interactions with their environment influence early individual and ethnic group differences in children’s early math (i.e. numeracy and spatial) skills, which have been linked to later differences in STEM achievement and entry into the STEM fields. During his time in the program, Daniel has had opportunities to collaborate on projects with Dr. Keumjoo Kwak (Seoul National University) and Dr. Marianella Casasola (Cornell), and he continues to collaborate with Dr. Melissa Libertus (UPitt) and Dr. Natasha Cabrera (UMaryland) to better understand the early development of early math skills across various contexts. 

Jason Thompson is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University. He graduated from NYU in 2017. He received a one-year NYU PIRT fellowship for the 2013-2014 academic year and is an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2014-2015 academic year. Jason received his BA in Sociology from Penn State University’s Schreyer Honor College in 2005 prior to serving as a third grade teacher with Teach For America, Phoenix.  His research interests pertain to stratification, education, and quantitative methods.  Currently, Jason is working on his dissertation which examines the role of postsecondary institutional quality in intergenerational social mobility.  His adviser and research mentor was Richard Arum.

Gerard Torrats-Espinosa was a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS. He was awarded a 3-year NYU PIRT fellowship in 2014 and completed the training program in 2017. Gerard’s interests include multigenerational neighborhood effects, social stratification, and social mobility. Specifically, his research focuses on the role that community violence plays as a mediating mechanism between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and children’s cognitive outcomes. His work will consider differences in family resources and parenting strategies that inform how children cope with neighborhood violence. Additionally, he aims to explore how individual agency allows youth to construct their own neighborhood boundaries and navigate violent environments. His interests also include social networks, Bayesian modeling, and causal inference. Gerard holds a BS in Building Engineering from Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain) and a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. His adviser is Patrick Sharkey.

Alexandra Ursache was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2009. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2013 and graduated from the Developmental Psychology program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2014. She completed her Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the NEED Lab at Columbia Medical School. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine. Her focus is on the development of executive function and its relation to academic performance throughout childhood. She is especially interested in how early environmental factors, such as socioeconomic status and stress, influence executive function and neural development. Her dissertation title is “Do bottom-up aspects of self-regulation predict executive functioning?: Testing a bi-directional model of self-regulation and applying it to home and school contexts.” Clancy Blair was Alexandra’s IES-PIRT research mentor and Catherine Tamis-LeMonda was her adviser.

Melissa Velez was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2008. She completed the IES-PIRT and graduated from the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS in 2010. She is currently a Senior Analyst in the Social and Economic Policy Division at Abt Associates, Inc. While at NYU, Melissa's work examined the relationship between school disciplinary climate and academic achievement, the impact of adversarial legalism, and the longitudinal effects of education reform on urban school districts. Her research interests focus on stratification and the sociology of education. Melissa's previous professional experience includes conducting educational data analysis for MDRC, the Social Science Research Council, and the New York City Department of Education. Her dissertation title is “Time Use, Social Class and Academic Achievement.” Richard Arum was her adviser and Dalton Conley was her IES-PIRT research mentor.

Alex Watford is a PhD student in the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the department of Applied Psychology. Alex studies how formal and informal settings can support or constrain positive identity development of Black and Latino youth in the U.S., with a particular emphasis on schools. 

Andrew Weaver is a doctoral candidate in the Literacy Education program in the Department of Teaching & Learning at NYU Steinhardt. He received a two-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2018 and a one-year continuation in 2021. He is interested in the factors affecting literacy development for multilingual students, particularly how peer relationships foster language and literacy development for multilingual students in early adolescence. Andrew received a B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University and a M.Ed. from Southern Methodist University. He has 3 years of experience working in the Dallas Independent School District, including 2 years as a 6th grade ELAR teacher.

Fangqi Wen is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at NYU GSAS. She was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2014-2015 academic year. Her research interests include social stratification and mobility, social demography and quantitative methods with a special focus on causal inference. In previous projects, by adopting the within-family comparison approach, Fangqi examines how birth order affects children’s educational attainment, and how families make decisions about parent-child coresidence based on sibling comparative advantage. After joining the Department of Sociology at NYU, Fangqi starts a new research project that investigates the effect of labor market condition on local marriage market outcomes. In order to go one step further towards causality, a natural experiment is exploited. Fangqi holds a B.A. in Sociology from Sun Yat-Sen University (China) and an M.phil in Social Science from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her adviser is Paula England and she also works closely with Florencia Torche and Dalton Conley.

Emilyn Ruble Whitesell was awarded a 4-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2010. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2014 and is graduated from the NYU Wagner Graduate School in 2015. She is currently a Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. Emilyn's research and teaching interests are in the areas of education policy and program evaluation. Her current research focuses on how school accountability influences parent, teacher, and student perceptions of their schools, large-scale program evaluation, and the spillover effects of student mobility. Before coming to NYU, Emi taught high school English as a Teach for America corps member in Indianapolis. Emi holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Marian University and a Bachelor of Science in business from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Her advisers were Leanna Stiefel and Amy Ellen Schwartz.

Sharon Wolf was awarded a 2-year IES-PIRT fellowship in 2011. She completed the IES-PIRT program in 2013 and was an NYU PIRT affiliate for the 2013-2014 academic year. She graduated from the Psychology and Social Intervention program in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt in 2014. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methods at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a National Poverty Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research is driven by the application of the bioecological framework to understanding the mechanisms through which families and schools operate to affect children’s academic success. Her interests lie in applying such frameworks to design and test interventions aimed at improving these settings and informing policy. Sharon works both domestically and internationally, focusing on antipoverty programs in the United States and in educational program in sub-Saharan Africa. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of a conditional cash transfer program in New York City on adolescents and their families, and is titled "Adapting Conditional Cash Transfer Programs to Wealthy, Services-Rich Societies to Close the Income Achievement Gap: Theoretical Issues and Empirical Evidence."  Her adviser was Larry Aber, and her IES-PIRT mentors were Larry Aber and Pamela Morris-Perez.