Olivia Chi is a Ph.D. student in Education with a concentration in Education Policy and Program Evaluation. Her research interests include the economics of education, teacher labor markets, and policies that reduce educational inequality.
Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a research analyst at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and as an elementary school teacher in New Haven, Connecticut. Olivia holds an A.B. in Economics and Public Policy (magna cum laude) from Brown University.
Kathleen Lynch is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she is a Presidential Scholar and Spencer Foundation Early Career Scholar in the New Civics. Her research interests include education policy and strategies to reduce educational inequality, particularly in mathematics.
Kathleen holds an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she was a FLAS and Pforzheimer Fellow. Kathleen graduated with high honors from Harvard College.
Abena Subira Mackall is a doctoral student concentrating in Culture, Communities, and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Abena's professional experience and research reflect her deep commitment to improving the educational opportunities for both young people and adults under criminal justice supervision. She previously taught 6th grade special education in New York City and worked for four years as an an instructional coach for pre-service teachers in New York and Boston. Additionally, Abena has worked as health instructor and academic mentor in correctional facilities.
Her research includes studies on in-prison programming, promoting civic health among incarcerated adults in classroom settings, and the perceived experiences of young people on probation.
Abena is a former Co-Chair of the Harvard Educational Review and holds a MSc in Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies from the London School of Economics, a MSEd in Special Education from Hunter College, and an AB in Politics with a Certificate in African American Studies from Princeton University.
Ann Mantil is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She holds a BA from Williams College in political science and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.
Prior to coming to HGSE, she worked for nine years as a classroom teacher and administrator at charter schools in Oakland, CA and Washington, DC. She is broadly interested in the distributional effects of educational policies and practices.
Her research focuses on how district and school-level structures such as student assignment policies, tracking and within-class ability grouping, and high-stakes testing impact the achievement of low-income children.
Preeya Pandya Mbekeani is a doctoral student in the Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Broadly, she is interested in education policy and educational inequality. Her research interests include college access and success of first-generation and low-income students and the consequences of high-stakes testing on low-income students.
Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she worked on initiatives to support the development of school leaders at the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She spent five years as a Teacher-Counselor in Cambridge Housing Authority’s The Work Force Program and three years as a French Teacher in Lebeau, Louisiana.
She holds a Master’s degree in Education Policy and Management from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and African and African-American Studies from the University of Chicago.
Amelia Peterson is part of the first cohort of Harvard’s PhD in Education Policy and Program Evaluation. In her research, she is studying change in the...
