I am a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Columbia University. My research focuses on school district governance, and the effects of superintendents and school board members on policymaking and educational inequality. My research is primarily quantitative, and uses novel administrative data sources.

One of my primary research projects examines “superintendent effects” on student achievement. I constructed a longitudinal dataset of superintendent employment tenures in 26 states, matched to district-level achievement data, to estimate variation in superintendent effects on student achievement.

I am currently researching how partisan divisions among school board members contribute to local policymaking differences. My current research examines whether school boards typically appoint co-partisan superintendents to lead their districts, and whether Republican and Democratic school boards authorize tax and bond elections at different rates. My research is supported by a 2021 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation fellowship.

Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as Director of Evaluation and Development at Digital Harbor Foundation, a technology education non-profit in Baltimore, MD. I also worked as an Analyst at Legal Services Corporation‘s Office of Data Governance and Analysis, and as an Analyst at Benenson Strategy Group, chief polling firm to President Barack Obama.

In addition to my Ph.D., I have an M.A. in Statistics from Columbia, and received an M.Phil. in Development Studies from the Department of International Development at University of Oxford on a Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship.

Outside of work, I enjoy long-distance running, and ran my first NYC Marathon in Fall 2021. I’m active in grassroots Democratic politics, and am an appointed member of the Manhattan Democratic Party County Committee.

I have experience with R, STATA, web-scraping, machine learning, survey writing, Tableau, and SQL.