Leadership
Carrie Miller
Associate Director | Senior Research Analyst
About Carrie
Carrie serves as LAERI’s associate director. She coordinates the data management and communications teams, onboards new research projects, and serves as a senior analyst for several LAERI-affiliated research projects. Her research focuses on educational inequality and the transition to adulthood. Her current research projects include a quasi-experimental study of the impact of access to accelerated middle school math coursework on students’ high school and college outcomes, a mixed-methods study that identifies elementary and middle schools that are particularly effective at improving low-income students’ academic skills and the practices that contribute to their effectiveness, and a longitudinal qualitative study of how diverse families navigate the transition to adulthood and postsecondary education. Prior to joining LAERI, she worked as a university administrator, where she coordinated academic support programs for community college students and oversaw student housing, orientation, and leadership development programs.
Becca Lowry
Data Manager
About Becca
Affiliated Researchers
Felipe Goncalves
Assistant Professor
UCLA Economics Department
About Dr. Goncalves
Paul Hanselman
Assistant Professor
UC Irvine Department of Sociology
About Dr. Hanselman
Jasmine Hill
Assistant Professor
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs & UCLA Sociology Department
About Dr. Hill
Adam Kho
Assistant Professor
USC Rossier School of Education
About Dr. Kho
Anna Markowitz
Assistant Professor
UCLA School of Education
About Dr. Markowitz
Jose-Felipe Martinez
Associate Professor
UCLA School of Education
About Dr. Martinez
Tatiana Melguizo
Professor
USC Rossier School of Education
About Dr. Melguizo
Ann Owens
Associate Professor
USC Sociology Department
About Dr. Owens
Gary Dean Painter
Professor
USC Price School of Public Policy
About Dr. Painter
Meredith Phillips
Associate Professor
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs & UCLA Sociology Department
About Dr. Phillips
Karen Hunter Quartz
Director
UCLA Center for Community Schooling
About Dr. Hunter Quartz
Lucrecia Santibañez
Associate Professor
UCLA School of Education
About Dr. Santibañez
Marisa Saunders
Associate Director for Research
UCLA Center for Community Schooling
About Dr. Saunders
Jared Schachner
Postdoctoral Research Associate
USC Price School of Public Policy
About Dr. Schachner
Leonard Wainstein
Visiting Assistant Professor of Statistics
Reed College
About Dr. Wainstein
Emily Weisburst
Assistant Professor
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
About Dr. Weisburst
Kyo Yamashiro
Assistant Professor
LMU School of Education
About Dr. Yamashiro
Student Affiliates
Caitlin Ahearn
Ph.D. Candidate
UCLA Sociology Department
About Caitlin
Caitlin is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at UCLA and a National Academy/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow. Caitlin is also a student affiliate at the California Center for Population Research and has worked as a research fellow for the Los Angeles Education Research Institute for four years. She is broadly interested in inequalities in educational attainment and associated occupational and life course outcomes. Her research applies causal inference approaches to large-scale longitudinal survey data.
Aaliyah Ali-Khan
Research Intern
UCLA Public Affairs Department
About Aaliyah
Aaliyah is an undergraduate at UCLA in the Public Affairs Department. At LAERI, she is conducting research on Los Angeles County schools and is part of the data management team, which cleans and documents data in the LAERI archive.
Helen Chao
Research Intern
UCLA Psychology Department
About Helen
Helen is an undergraduate at UCLA in the Psychology Department. Helen is interested in exploring the effects of educational initiatives for elementary and middle school students. At LAERI, she is conducting research on Los Angeles County schools and is part of the data management team, which cleans and documents data in the LAERI archive.
Edward Flores
Ph.D. Candidate
Claremont Graduate University School of Educational Studies
About Edward
Edward is a doctoral candidate in Education at Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on teacher pedagogy that supports the development of student critical consciousness in high school Ethnic Studies and its impact on students’ civic engagement practices. Before graduate school, Edward managed a Youth Leadership Development program in Los Angeles, where students and teachers collaborated on Youth Participatory Action Research projects.
Andrea Kern
Ph.D. Student
UCLA School of Education
About Andrea
Andrea is a doctoral student at UCLA in the Department of Education. Her research interests focus on the relationship between teaching experiences, language ideologies, and classroom practices of K-12 teachers of linguistically marginalized youth. Prior to graduate school, Andrea managed educational programming around mentorship and youth development at a large non-profit in Los Angeles.
Sarah Kosic
Research Intern
UCLA Mathematics Department
About Sarah
Sarah Kosic is an undergraduate student at UCLA in the Mathematics department. Sarah is interested in exploring disparities in K-12 schools and the impacts of educational interventions on equitable learning.
Annika Park
Communications Intern
UCLA Department of Linguistics
About Annika
Annika Park is a UCLA undergraduate student majoring in Applied Linguistics. Annika is interested in speech-language pathology. She is part of the communications team and helps design LAERI publications and promote LAERI’s work.
Sam Speroni
Ph.D. Student
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
About Sam
Sam is a doctoral student at UCLA in the Department of Urban Planning. He is currently studying the travel behavior decisions of families for school trips; the implications of COVID-19 and remote work on the future of transportation and public transit; and the shifting landscape of automobile use and debt in California. Prior to graduate school, Sam taught high school English and served as a school administrator for Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and magnet programs in North Carolina.
Rachel Vogt
Ph.D. Student
Boston University Economics Department
About Rachel
Rachel is an economics Ph.D. student at Boston University. Before starting her doctoral studies, Rachel served as the LAERI data manager and as a research analyst.
Carolyn Wang
Research Intern
UCLA Statistics & Public Affairs Departments
About Carolyn
Carolyn is an undergraduate at UCLA in the Statistics and Public Affairs departments. At LAERI, she is conducting research on Los Angeles County schools and is part of the data management team, which cleans and documents data in the LAERI archive.
Former Staff
Mia Baker, Research Intern
Abbie Bates, Research Fellow
Kelly Chen, Research Intern
Ryan Cho, Research Fellow
Elizabeth Connolly, Research Intern
Tiana Cui, Research Intern
Jannelle Dang, Research Intern
Caty Drewniak, Communications Intern
Tim Chen, Research Intern
Kimberly Fabian, Research Intern
Adina Farrukh, Research Assistant
Dean Gao, Research Assistant
Anthony Gonzalez Orozco, Research Intern
Saman Haddad, Research Intern
Mia Hahn, Research Intern
Sabrina Huang, Research Intern
Tom Jacobson, Research Fellow
Sara Johnsen, Research Fellow
Paul Kang, Research Intern
Tae Kang, Research Assistant
Megan Kuhfeld, Research Fellow
Annie Kuo, Research Assistant
Rennie Lee, Postdoctoral Fellow
Robin Lee, Research Intern
Maxwell Mansolf, Research Intern
Paul Martinez, Research Fellow
Abby McClelland, Research Assistant
Alex Mendoza-Graff, Research Assistant
Vanessa Morris, Research Intern
Sara Novicoff, Research Intern
Natasha Oliver, Research Assistant
Kayla Park, Research Intern
Alejandra Priede, Research Fellow
Tomi Rajninger, Research Intern
Jordan Rickles, Postdoctoral Fellow
Kevin Schaaf, Research Fellow
Ian Schiffert, Research Intern
Jonathan Schweig, Research Fellow
Karen Yi, Research Intern
Adrian Yu, Research Intern