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Academics: Section Title

Meet Current Members

Get to know our members and the issues they work on.

Academics: Services
Alberto Guzman - Alvarez
University of Pittsburgh
 
Alberto Guzman-Alvarez​ ​is a Ph.D. student in the Learning Sciences and Policy Program. His research focuses on quantitative methods and their application to educational policy issues around college access.
Lucy Fuentes
San Francisco State University
 
Lucy Fuentes​ is in her first year in the Educational Leadership Doctorate Program. Her doctoral research interests relate to foster youth and education. She works as the Title IV-E Project Coordinator within the School of Social Work at San Francisco State University. Title IV-E aims at providing professional education and monetary support to students pursuing a career in public child welfare. Prior to becoming part of a team that prepares the next generation of Child Welfare Workers, Lucy worked in Child Welfare Services for 7 years as a Child Welfare Worker and Child Welfare Supervisor. During her time as a county worker, Lucy obtained her License in Clinical Social Work (LCSW). Prior to her work in Child Welfare Services Lucy worked at the University of San Francisco as a Freshman Admission Counselor recruiting and selecting first year undergraduate students. Lucy obtained her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of San Francisco and her master’s degree in Social Work as a Title IV-E recipient at SFSU.
Natasha McClendon
Georgia State University
 
Natasha McClendon​ is a doctoral candidate in the Educational Policy Studies program at Georgia State University. Her research explores institutional and student-defined student success within Higher Education, Black Aesthetics, and visual research methods. She is also interested in policy analysis that integrates Black Aesthetics to investigate how policies are visually communicated. She is also interested in research exploring supporting underrepresented students in higher education through transformational organizational change.
Tomoko M. Nakajima
University of California, Los Angeles
 
Tomoko M. Nakajima​ is a PhD candidate in Urban Schooling, and her dissertation examines the working conditions and teacher retention at urban Title I public schools. Tomoko most recently worked with the MOMENTUM (formerly BRAID Research) team to examine gender and racial inequities in undergraduate computer science departments, and Exploring Computer Science, a project that studied the effects of culturally responsive computing instruction on high school students’ outcomes. She was also on the evaluation team for the STEM teacher preparation program at CSU Dominguez Hills. As a former classroom teacher, Tomoko holds a bachelor’s degree in music education, a master’s in education administration, and a bilingual (Spanish) teaching credential.
Priscilla Zhao
University of Michigan
 
Priscilla Zhao​ graduated with a double major in Pure Mathematics and Communication & Media Studies. In her undergraduate studies, she actively engaged in several research projects and conducted her own research with professors and scholars around the US and China. She also had worked as a volunteer tutor in Vietnam, China and Michigan. These experiences made her become more dedicated to contributing to the field of education. She hopes to improve educational research methodologies and develop new methodologies with machine learning techniques that advance the future education research and practice and benefit the children in need.
Qiyang Zhang
John Hopkins University
 
Qiyang Zhang is a PhD student at the Graduate School of Education. She is currently working as a research assistant at Center for Research and Reform in Education with her advisor Dr. Robert Slavin. Before coming to Johns Hopkins, she graduated with a Master’s degree in Education Policy from the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. She also holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Industrial Systems Engineering (with Honors and Distinction) from the National University of Singapore.
Amanda Glover
Teachers College, Columbia University
 
Amanda Glover ​is a second year Education Policy student. From rural Kentucky, her research interests include rural education systems and poverty, education technology, and the relationship between policy and academia. Amanda is a former middle school mathematics teacher with Teach For America’s Nashville 2011 corps. She has taught first generation students college readiness skills and managed their professional mentors with iMentor New York and led teacher development and strategic partnerships with Kiddom, an educational technology startup. Currently, she works with the Teachers College Survey Research Initiative (SRI) as a Graduate Research Associate and has completed studies on charter school accountability and oversight as well as state legislative bill analysis addressing virtual learning needs from COVID-19.
Micaela Watson
University of California, Los Angeles
 
Micaela Watson​ is a MA candidate in the Human Development and Psychology program. Her research focuses on improving academic outcomes for historically marginalized youth. Her research areas include: motivation, achievement, implicit bias, and teacher effectiveness. Currently, she is using a culturally relevant teaching framework for her master's capstone which is about improving urban elementary students' reading and writing literacy achievement through motivation. She received her BA in psychology from the College of Wooster where she also minored in early childhood and young adolescent education. During undergraduate school she conducted research on diminishing teachers' implicit bias for improved teacher effectiveness and improved performance outcomes for historically marginalized students.
Natalie Fenterstock
University of California, Los Angeles
 
Natalie Fensterstock​ is a first year PhD student in Social Welfare. Her doctoral research focuses on mitigating the broad impacts of child poverty on academic engagement and promoting ongoing school readiness for vulnerable youth populations. She holds a MA in Social Sciences and Comparative Education with a focus on International Comparative Education, also from UCLA, and a single-subject teaching credential from Loyola Marymount University. Her MA research included two strands: one strand focused on the history of immigration policy and the role of schools in promoting positive youth social cohesion in the United States and Sweden and the second strand focused on the use of Integrated Data Systems in equitably providing integrated student services in two university-assisted community schools in Los Angeles.
Doris Xu
Beijing Normal University
 
Doris Xu got a Bachelor of Education at Hunan Normal University, and is now a MA student at Beijing Normal University. She has been a research assistant intern in the Department of Psychology, Tsinghua University for one year. She was also a volunteer teacher in remote rural areas of China. Recently, she finished research about the relationship between adolescent learning motivation, and security and academic achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic. She focuses on the curriculum and teaching, hoping to improve the engagement and achievement of students.
Cameron Diwa
Teachers College, Columbia University
 
Cameron Diwa is a first year MA student, studying Sociology and Education and pursuing a concentration in Education Policy. He hopes to continue into a PhD after his MA, so he is using his time at TC to explore and hone his interests in education, and to develop his research skills. Broadly speaking, he is interested in the sociology of higher education, higher education policy, intersectional identity development in college students, diversity and equity issues in higher education, and data science as a means for education policy analysis.
Hankyeong Kim
City College of New York
 
Hankyeong Kim is a Masters of Public Administration candidate at the City College of New York. She is interested in immigrant integration education policies, to reduce education inequality for newly settled immigrants in the United States. Her research explores creating and designing realistic and practical education policies. She would like to contribute to improving the lives and independence of future immigrants, particularly by providing equal access to quality education for all immigrant and refugee children.
Eli Talbert
University of Virginia
 
Eli Talbert​ is a current second year doctoral student in the Research, Statistics, and Evaluation Program. His substantive interests are in minority issues in workforce and education policy with methodological interests in the integration of measurement and evaluation. Eli is a University of Pittsburgh alum, a currently serving member of the United States Army Reserve, and occasionally moonlights at the RAND corporation.
Naomi Byrdo
University of Washington
 
Naomi Byrdo​ is currently a candidate in the Master of Education Policy Program. She is seeking to pursue a career in law and advocacy work on behalf of the very disadvantaged and marginalized groups that my identity aligns with. Currently, her target is to remain focused on funding transparency practices within education systems and their influences on the success and engagement of these groups for the purpose of better outcomes. With her admiration for the intersections of law and public policy, she aspires to pursue a law degree soon after completing UW's graduate program to investigate the constitutionality of education and its connections to past and present policies made by the federal government within a critical race theory perspective. As she looks forward to upholding my commitment to advocating for communities as an education policy professional, she is eager to immerse myself within its conjunction with the law and gaining the skill to transform systems to be more equitable and just for especially Black, Brown, and low-income communities.
Sarah Narvaiz
University of Tennessee
 
Sarah Narvaiz​ is a PhD student studying evaluation, statistics, and methodology within educational psychology. Her primary research interests include survey methodology, college and career preparation, underserved and underrepresented students and families, mental health counseling, and psychometrics
Rachel Roberson
University of California, Berkeley
 
Rachel Roberson​ is a PhD candidate in the Education Policy & Organizations Program, with a specialization in Higher Education Administration. Rachel’s scholarship compliments a decade-long career working with education-related non-profits, schools, and colleges in various spaces and places from California to Texas and Colorado. While Rachel’s work maintains an ardent commitment to educational equity, at the heart of her work is a deep commitment to centering the holistic humanity of those most marginalized by interlocking systems of power to achieve collective liberation.
Tatiana Harrison
San Francisco State University
 
Tatiana Harrison’​ s degree in Communications from Northwestern University led to a decade working as a public radio reporter in Latin America, based in her mother’s native country of Peru. She then was privileged to enter the world of system-impacted youth in Sonoma County, California. For four years, she was director of Voice of Youth at NPR’s KRCB, and then she became a classroom teacher at the local Juvenile Hall. She was awarded a master’s in Education and is currently an Educational Leadership doctoral candidate at San Francisco State University.
Erica Mallett
University of Washington
 
Erica Mallett​ is a PhD student in Educational, Policy, Organizations, and Leadership Program. Her research interests include, educational policy, the economics of education, school finance, racial equity, equitable policy implementation, school and district leadership and decision-making, and BIPOC student success. She currently works as a graduate research assistant with the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR). Her current research with CEDR explores how teacher salaries impact retirement decisions and pension obligations, and Career and Technical Education teachers’ impact on special education students.
Rathi Sudhakara
University of Washington
 
Rathi Sudhakara is a student of Master's in Education Policy. Her interests are in education range from school funding models, equity in STEM and gifted programs to legislative process and action. She has an electrical and electronics engineering degree and has worked in engineering as well as advertising and marketing. She is also a mother of two boys. She is interested in using her analytical and presentation skills to change the landscape of education in the US by bringing in technology to inform communities about school funding processes, influencing legislators and corporates to ensure high quality STEM access to all children and bringing in equity in gifted programs. On an aside, one of her other passion projects is to bring a universal second language in elementary schools.
Kassandra Talbot
San Francisco State University
 
Kassandra (Kassi) Talbot is a co-founder of United Front LLC, an equity-centered professional development and educational consulting firm, a doctoral candidate at San Francisco State University in Educational Leadership and a secondary school Spanish and Social Studies Educator. Since 2017, Kassandra led the inception of the school Climate Assembly and Equity Action Plan, where colleagues and administrators address systemic issues of inequity and its historical roots. Her action measures have created critical conversations at her school site and resulted in a board approved equity action plan; creating pressure points and points of entry to shift the cultural and political landscape to one that centers racial justice and equity.
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