Joseph Cimpian
Professor of Economics and Education Policy
Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities
Joseph Cimpian, Ph.D. (Stanford University), is Professor of Economics and Education Policy at New York University. His research focuses on understanding the patterns and causes of social and educational inequities, and then identifying policy and practice solutions for removing barriers and promoting equity. His research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Spencer Foundation. He is currently the PI or co-PI of active grants and contracts totaling over $10 million, including a $7.4-million national investigation of the effects of English learner classification and reclassification policies, based on his pioneering research using regression discontinuity designs to inform policies concerning reclassification decisions. Another line of his research examines the roles of social, institutional, and psychological factors influencing the development of gender gaps in STEM. His research in that area has used experiments to reveal biases against the math abilities of girls and racial minorities, and his large-scale data research has uncovered how low-achieving men are disproportionately drawn to math-intensive college majors. Other research of his has documented the need for supports for LGBTQ+ youth, while also enhancing the rigor of research in that area by developing methods to improve data quality for survey data comparisons of majority and minority youth.
Dr. Cimpian’s peer-reviewed research has been published in Science, JAMA Pediatrics, Child Development, the American Journal of Public Health, Educational Researcher, and the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, among many other journals. He has presented his research at invited seminars at top universities around the world, including Stanford, Princeton, Chicago, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Sciences Po. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, PBS Newshour, and Brookings. Dr. Cimpian has presented his policy research at a U.S. Congressional briefing, at an annual meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers, and to the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. He is a recipient of a Spencer Foundation/National Academy of Education Dissertation Fellowship, and subsequently, a Spencer/NAEd Postdoctoral Fellowship. He served as Editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, as a special issue Editor of Educational Researcher, and on the Editorial Boards of numerous journals, including Educational Researcher, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal for Research on Educational Effectiveness, and Child Development. He served appointments as Chair of the Scholars and Advocates for Gender Equity committee and as a member of the Social Justice Action Committee for AERA. At NYU, Dr. Cimpian advises doctoral students in Public Policy at NYU Wagner and the new doctoral program in Statistics and Computational Social Science; he co-directs the Master’s program in Education and Social Policy; and he regularly works closely with doctoral students in the IES-PIRT program (cross-university), Applied Psychology (in Steinhardt), Public Policy (in Wagner), and Psychology (in Arts and Sciences).
Selected Publications
- Cimpian, J. R., Timmer, J. D., & Kim, T. H. (2023). Mitigating invalid and mischievous survey responses: A registered report examining risk disparities between heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning youth. Child Development, 94(5), 1136–1161.
- Copur-Gencturk, Y., Thacker, I., & Cimpian, J. R. (2023). Teachers’ race and gender biases and the moderating effects of their beliefs and dispositions. International Journal of STEM Education, 10(1), 1–25.
- Muradoglu, M., Cimpian, J. R., & Cimpian, A. (2023). Mixed-effects models for cognitive development researchers. Journal of Cognition and Development, 24(3), 307–340.
- Copur-Gencturk, Y., Thacker, I., & Cimpian, J. R. (2022). Teacher bias in the virtual classroom. Computers & Education, 191(104627), 1–17.
- Perry, M., Bates, M. S., Cimpian, J. R., Beilstein, S. O., & Moran, C. (2022). Impacting teachers’ reflection on elementary mathematics classroom videos in online asynchronous professional learning contexts. Teaching and Teacher Education: Leadership and Professional Development, 1.
- Beilstein, S. O., Henricks, G. M., Jay, V., Perry, M., Bates, M. S., Moran, C. G., & Cimpian, J. R. (2021). Teacher voices from an online elementary mathematics community: Examining perceptions of professional learning. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 24(3), 283–308.
- Cimpian, J. R., Kim, T. H., & McDermott, Z. T. (2020). Understanding persistent gender gaps in STEM. Science, 368(6497), 1317–1319.
- Cimpian, J. R. (2020). Why focusing on test metrics may impede gender equity: Policy insights. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 7(1), 64–71.
- Cimpian, J. R., & Timmer, J. D. (2020). Mischievous responders and sexual minority youth survey data: A brief history, recent methodological advances, and implications for research and practice. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(4), 1097–1102.
- Copur-Gencturk, Y., Cimpian, J. R., Lubienski, S. T., & Thacker, I. (2020). Teachers’ bias against the mathematical ability of female, black and Hispanic students. Educational Researcher, 49(1), 30–43.
- Cimpian, J. R., & Timmer, J. D. (2019). Large-scale estimates of LGBQ–heterosexual disparities in the presence of potentially mischievous responders: A pre-registered replication and comparison of methods. AERA Open, 5(4), 1–35.
- Cimpian, J. R., Timmer, J. D., Birkett, M. A., Marro, R. L., Turner, B. C., & Phillips II, G. L. (2018). Bias from potentially mischievous responders on large-scale estimates of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ)–heterosexual youth health disparities. American Journal of Public Health, 108(S6), e1–e8.
- Ganley, C. M., George, C. E., Cimpian, J. R., & Makowski, M. (2018). Gender equity in college majors: Looking beyond the STEM/non-STEM dichotomy for answers regarding female participation. American Educational Research Journal, 55(3), 453–487.
- Cimpian, J. R. (2017). Classification errors and bias regarding research on sexual minority youths. Educational Researcher, 46(9), 517–529.
- Cimpian, J. R., Thompson, K. D., & Makowski, M. (2017). Evaluating English learner reclassification policy effects across districts. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1_suppl), 255S–278S.
- Porter, K. E., Reardon, S. F., Unlu, F., Bloom, H. S., & Cimpian, J. R. (2017). Estimating causal effects of education interventions using a two-rating regression discontinuity design. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 10(1), 138–167.
- Cimpian, J. R., Lubienski, S. T., Timmer, J., Makowski, M. B., & Miller, E. K. (2016). Have gender gaps in math closed? Achievement, teacher perceptions, and student behaviors across two ECLS-K cohorts. AERA Open, 2(4), 1–19.
- Robinson-Cimpian, J. P., & Thompson, K. D. (2016). The effects of changing test-based policies for reclassifying English learners. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 35(2), 279–305.
- Robinson-Cimpian, J. P., Thompson, K. D., & Umansky, I. M. (2016). Research and policy considerations for English learner equity. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(1), 129–137.