People

Jal Mehta

Jal Mehta

PhD in Sociology and Social Policy, 2006.
Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education.


In Search of Deeper Learning, by Jal Mehta and Sarah FineJal Mehta's latest book, co-authored with Sarah Fine, In Search of Deeper Learning: The Quest to Remake the American High School, has been published by Harvard University Press (2019). 

Winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Education, 2019.

PROSE Award Finalist, Association of American Publishers, 2020.

What would it take to transform industrial-era schools into modern organizations capable of supporting deep learning for all? Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine’s quest to answer this question took them inside some of America’s most innovative schools and classrooms—places where educators are rethinking both what and how students should learn.


Education in a New Society, edited by Jal Mehta and Scott DaviesJal Mehta's edited volume (with Scott Davies), Education in a New Society: Renewing the Sociology of Education, has been published by the University of Chicago Press (2018).

The sociology of education, the contributors show, largely works with themes, concepts, and theories that were generated decades ago, even as both the actual world of education and the discipline of sociology have changed considerably. The moment has come, they argue, to break free of the past and begin asking new questions and developing new programs of empirical study. Both rallying cry and road map, Education in a New Society will galvanize the field.

 

Evelyn Green Davis Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2016-2017.

Winner of the Morningstar Family Teaching Award, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2014.
 

The Allure of OrderJal Mehta's is the author of The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling, which recounts a century of attempts at revitalizing public education, and puts forward a truly new agenda to reach this elusive goal. Oxford University Press (2013).

The Futures of School ReformThe Futures of School Reform, edited by Jal Mehta, Robert B. Schwartz, and Frederick M. Hess, represents the culminating work of a three-year discussion among national education leaders convened by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Harvard Education Press (2012).

Winner of the Spencer Foundation's Exemplary Dissertation Award for his dissertation, "The Transformation of American Educational Policy, 1980-2001: Ideas and the Rise of Accountability Politics," 2010.

Winner of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Politics of Education, 2008.

Jal Mehta

Jal Mehta

Professor of Education


Research interests: What it would take to create high quality schooling at scale, with a particular interest in the professionalization of teaching.

Mehta is currently working on two projects: The Chastened Dream, a history of the effort to link social science with social policy to achieve social progress; and In Search of Deeper Learning, a contemporary study of schools, systems, and nations that are seeking to produce ambitious instruction. 

Pamela Metz

Associate Director
Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy
and joint Ph.D. Program in Social Policy.
Garry Mitchell

Garry Mitchell

PhD student in Education
Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration
Joshua W. Mitchell

Joshua W. Mitchell

PhD in Economics, 2011.
Senior Economist, Welch Consulting.


Before joining Welch Consulting in 2018, Joshua Mitchell was a Senior Economist at the U.S. Census Bureau where his research made use of large administrative datasets to analyze survey data quality limitations and understand the implications for accurately measuring economic progress by age and gender.

Prior to joining Census, Dr. Mitchell was a Research Economist at the Urban Institute where he focused on labor market issues including long-term unemployment, earnings inequality, and job polarization.

Alexandra Mitukiewicz

Alexandra Mitukiewicz

PhD student in Sociology & Social Policy
Malcolm Wiener PhD Research Fellow in Poverty and Justice
Alicia Sasser Modestino

Alicia Sasser Modestino

PhD in Economics, 2001.
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Economics.
Director of Research, Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.


The Brookings Institution, Non-resident Scholar, 2016-present.
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, Invited researcher, 2018-present.

Previously, Modestino was a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she led numerous research projects on regional economic and policy issues.

Raven Molloy

Raven (Saks) Molloy

PhD in Economics, 2005.
Section Chief, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.


Winner of the Edwin S. Mills Real Estate Economics Best Paper Award, American Real Estate and Urban Economics, Association, 2013.

Winner of the Arrow Prize for Best Paper by a Junior Economist, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2005.

Ellis Monk

Ellis Monk

Associate Professor of Sociology


Research interests: Ethnoracial categorization, inequality, and stratification in comparative perspective, health, sociology of the body, political sociology, social psychology, cognition, theory, and Brazil.

Ryan T. Moore

Ryan T Moore

PhD in Government and Social Policy, 2008.
Associate Professor of Government, American University.
Senior Social Scientist, The Lab @ DC.


Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research, University of California, Berkeley, 2010-2012.