Maithreyi Gopalan is Associate Professor of Education and Public Policy at Penn State. She is also a Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member. She earned a doctorate from the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington. She engages in interdisciplinary, policy-relevant, social science research exploring the causes and consequences of racial and socioeconomic disparities in broadly defined student outcomes using experimental and quasi-experimental research methods. She has applied psychological insights to analyze social and educational policy issues affecting child and adolescent development. More recently, in a new line of research, she is exploring the impact of child and adolescent health on subsequent human development. Specifically, she is examining the impact of health policies on children’s development and the short- and long-term consequences of adverse adolescent mental health on subsequent educational attainment and life course trajectories. She hopes to better engage with a healthy disparities lens to this line of research.

Mahasan Chaney is an Assistant Professor of Education.  Her research and teaching focus on education policy, and the history of education and center on three related policy areas: the racial politics of education, the politics of school punishment, and the ideologies and discourses of education reform. 

Chaney rereceived her Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of California, Berkeley in 2019 and was later a posdoctoral researcher with the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity (CSREA) and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Chaney received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship in 2019 in support of her historical research on school discipline policies. She previously worked as a restorative justice coordinator at her alma mater Berkeley High School. 

Macy Brammer is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Brown. Broadly speaking, her research interests lie at the intersection of education, family, work, and gender. Specific projects address topics such as school funding, teacher compensation, and care work. Her current main project examines the intersection of work and family for parents who perform paid, highly interactive care work such as teaching, healthcare, and social services. Macy is particularly interested in the case of teachers, including how they come into the profession, how they navigate inequality in schools, and variation in teacher experiences. Macy has also done prior qualitative, interview-based research concerning how college students engage with Greek Life Organizations, primarily with a focus on college women and sorority membership, which she hopes to continue at some point in the future.

Lorna Porter is a Senior Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University where she designs and conducts research with the Research Partnership for Professional Learning. Lorna uses quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct research that informs education policy and practice, with a specific focus on strengthening access to learning opportunities for historically marginalized student groups. Prior to joining Annenberg, Lorna was a Research Manager at WestEd where she led research on policies that shape the educational experiences and outcomes of immigrant students and students classified as English learners.

Lorna has extensive experience working with state and local education agencies in research practice partnerships and believes deeply in the power of collaborative research to inform education policy and practice. Lorna holds a PhD in Quantitative Research Methods in Education from the University of Oregon, as well as a MA in Education Policy from the University of California, Davis and a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lindsey is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational & Counseling Psychology in the School of Education at State University of New York (SUNY), the University at Albany and a former Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, where she is also associated with the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Her primary research interests center on the intersection of special education and education policy with a focus on improving educational systems to promote thriving. More specifically, she conducts primarily quantitative research focused on special education labor markets, the impact of trauma exposure on students with disabilities, and improving outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Some of her prior work, including her dissertation research, has been focused on examining the paraeducator workforce using administrative data.

Lindsey is particularly motivated by engaging in interdisciplinary work that is designed to answer policy-relevant questions with the aim of maximizing the effectiveness of education and other service systems to support students with disabilities. Lindsey holds a Ph.D. in Special Education from Boston University and a M.T. and B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Lindsey was a special education teacher in DC Public Schools and Arlington Public Schools in the Washington, D.C. area.

Lindsay C. Page is the Annenberg Associate Professor of Education Policy at Brown University and is a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her work focuses on quantitative methods and their application to questions regarding the effectiveness of educational policies and programs across the pre-school to postsecondary spectrum. Much of her work has involved large-scale experimental or quasi-experimental studies to investigate the causal effects strategies for improving students’ transition to and through college. She is particularly interested in policy efforts to improve college access and success for students who would be first in their family to reach postsecondary education. She holds a doctorate in quantitative policy analysis and master's degrees in statistics and in education policy from Harvard University. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.

Lawrenzo is a native-Chicagoan and former Bay Area resident. He earned his bachelor degree in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and his Master Degree in Education from Stanford University. Before graduate study, Lawrenzo taught high school Humanities and Black Studies for five years. In this role, he helped students analyze history using Ethnic Studies and AfroFuturist frameworks. His educational and professional backgrounds have inspired him to consider the ways that race, gender, and other social identities impact students' ability to be free, happy, and satisfied in their schooling experiences. Specifically, he is interested in studying how different institutions, like schools, would be if joy and pleasure were at the center. Lawrenzo enjoys music, reading, politics, fashion, reality television, and baking! Research Interests: Race and Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality, Equity in Education, and the History of Education.  

Laura A. Schifter, EdD, is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute where she founded and directs This Is Planet Ed, an initiative to unlock the power of education as a force for climate solutions to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable and resilient future. In 2025, Schifter co-authored Students, Schools, and Our Climate Moment: Acting Now to Secure Our Future to provide a framework for climate action in schools and share inspiring stories from parents, educators, and leaders nationwide. Her expertise is widely recognized, with publications in TIME, CNN, The Hechinger Report, and Education Week, and features in national media including The Washington Post, USA Today, and NPR. 

Previously, Schifter served as a Lecturer on Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education (2014-2024), teaching courses on education, climate, and policy. She has worked as a policy and research consultant with clients including the Massachusetts Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice. She also served as a senior education and disability advisor for Rep. George Miller (D-CA) on the Committee on Education and Labor and an education fellow for Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Her early career included teaching elementary school in San Francisco and co-authoring How Did You Get Here? Students with Disabilities and Their Journeys to Harvard. Schifter earned her Ed.D. and Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. from Amherst College. After years working in special education policy, in 2019, she shifted her career to focus on the intersection of education and climate change.

López-Sanders’ research examines the role of institutions and societal policies and practices in the patterning of inequality. This research includes a study of immigrant integration in regions undergoing rapid demographic change, an analysis of the processes and mechanisms that influence the transition from a two-group (i.e., black and white) to a three group (i.e., black-white-Latino) racial system, and an investigation of racial competition before and after the Great Recession. To examine these dynamics, she conducted interviews and ethnographic research while working and living alongside Latino immigrant, African American, and white populations in South Carolina. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the subject.

On a related line of research, López-Sanders examines the ways in which health care reform influences access to and the delivery of health services for undocumented Latino immigrants at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and community hospitals. She is extending this research to examine how the experiences of Latino immigrants with health care reform in traditional immigrant destinations compare with the experiences of this population in new immigrant destinations. López-Sanders’ research further examines the mechanisms that shape people’s decisions affecting their health and well-being.  

For this project, she examined the persistent use of coal in Guatemalan households after a policy went into effect that provided people with clean burning gas stoves. Additionally, she conducted research in Mexico following hurricane Patricia to examine why many people decided not to evacuate coastal towns even in the face of clear predictions that devastation was imminent. 

Laura C. Chambers, PhD, MPH (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Epidemiology who works as a member of the People, Place, and Health Collective in the Brown University School of Public Health. She is passionate about working with public health departments and community-based organizations to improve population health and health equity. Dr. Chambers' work involves both research and applied epidemiology spanning the fields of substance use, harm reduction, mental health, sexual health, and infectious disease. Dr. Chambers completed a BS in Public Health at George Washington University and an MPH and PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Washington.