I am a social policy scholar with wide-ranging interests in U.S. domestic policy and particular interests in sometimes hard-to-identify populations (immigrant communities, LGBTQ+ individuals). Methodologically, I am a quantitative researcher with special expertise in wrangling large-scale administrative data, assessing data quality, and data visualization. I am currently an adjunct instructor at the University of Virginia and an associate with Agora Education Research.
Most of my research is rooted in my professional and personal experiences. I became interested in education policy at my first job out of college, as a fourth grade teacher in the Houston Independent School District. I then learned about the policy-making process as a legislative aide for Texas State Representative Dora Olivo, who served on Texas's House Public Education committee.
Beyond my academic research interests, I have a long-time interest in collaborating with government and non-profit partners. As a Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation, I worked with the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), among other federal agencies. As an IES Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Education & Human Development at the University of Virginia and as a Research Associate at The University of Texas at Austin, I worked with multiple state agencies, including the Louisiana Department of Education, Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), and Texas Office of the Attorney General’s Child Support Division.
I have a B.A. in History and English from Rice University, a MPA from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Duke University.
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