Kate Donohue leads analytics for research-practice partnerships in Rhode Island. Recently, Kate has worked with state and district partners to better understand the teacher workforce in the state. Prior to her current role, she worked on central staff at Dallas Independent School District, where she designed processes to improve the district’s talent strategy, and taught middle school social studies as a Teach for America Corps Member in rural North Carolina. She graduated from Boston College with a BA in Political Science and holds a Master’s in Urban Education Policy from Brown.

Karla is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Brown University.  

Karla graduated from Amherst College and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Latinx & Latin American Studies. As a Questbridge Scholar, Karla was involved in developing community engagement projects for first-generation, low-income students on campus. She also volunteered at her local library for four years to teach ESL to new immigrants and support their transition in a new country. Shaped from her experiences, she is interested in the ways that education can extend beyond the classroom and become a source of empowerment for communities outside of institutional settings. 

Joshua Bleiberg is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh and former Senior Research Associate and Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institution. His research focuses on using quasi-experimental methods to examine state and federal education policies. In recent research Josh has examined the causal effects of national standards-based reforms (e.g., NCLB, Common Core, ESEA Waivers) on academically vulnerable students using the National Assessment of Education Progress. 

Joshua received his Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy studies at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. He has a Master’s Degree in Education Policy and Management from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. Josh also holds a Childhood education teacher certification in New York.

Josh Almes is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. Almes studies spatial inequities caused and reinforced by education policies. Almes’ work applies critical geography frameworks to education systems, such as how the drawing of school district boundary lines create disparate financial realities for districts and communities. 

Josh’s research examines educational inequities through a spatial lens, as seen in his dissertation research, where he analyzed the way Pennsylvania school districts are drawn in comparison to algorithmically constructed counterfactual geometries.

Almes served as a high school social studies teacher for ten years in rural western Pennsylvania before pursuing a doctorate in Education Leadership and Policy at Penn State University. Josh also examines issues surrounding collective bargaining rights of educators, access to professional development and tuition reimbursement, as well as how rural areas navigate community development.

Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. He has extensive experience in using Team Based Inquiry Learning (TBIL) in introductory Mathematics courses and trains and mentors graduate students and postdocs to do the same. His current educational research interests are focussed around the impacts of TBIL on student engagement, motivation, and participation in STEM.

Jonathon earned his Bachelors of Science and Arts in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin with certificates in computer science and applied statistics in Fall 2023. During his undergrad, he was accepted into the McNair Scholars Fellowship Program where he researched inequity in mathematics course placement under the guidance of Dr. Yasmiyn Irizarry. He has presented his work at several McNair conferences and plans to attend ASA and PAA in the coming year.  

Now, his research interests include mathematics education with a focus on high school calculus, academic achievement, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, and mixed methodology. He currently works on a project with Dr. Emily Handsman on public attitudes towards new equity-focused math policies, and also has begun work on a new project on the experiences of queer men of color with academic achievement. As a queer man of color himself, Jonathon aims to center the voices of a historically marginalized group while also complicating the ongoing boy crisis in education through an emphasis on the intersectional experiences of students in schools.  

In his free time, Jonathon spends time reading, playing video games, and lifting. He can also be seen passing the time with his partner and cat, Chiquita.      

Jonathon Acosta is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. A trained sociologist, his research uses mixed methods to study migrant incorporation in postindustrial cities across the American northeast. His current work looks at the economic and geographic mobility of first and second generation migrants living in the panethnic postindustrial city. Specifically, he looks at how migrant students are able to navigate weak institutions (namely urban public schools) for their benefit. Acosta hopes to use his work to explore how migrants can leverage schools for their incorporation into the American mainstream. His work has been published in the Sociology of Development.

Before beginning his doctoral research, Acosta was a K-12 middle school math teacher and administrator. He was a 2011 Teach for America corps member in Miami where he was selected as his school's Rookie Teacher of the Year. He was later the founding 8th grade math teacher at Blackstone Valley Prep Middle School and eventually the Dean of Culture for which he was recognized by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. He served on the Central Falls City Council from 2016-2020. 

Acosta holds a Ph.D. in sociology, an MA in sociology, an MA in urban education policy, and a BA in political science and ethnic studies from Brown University. In his spare time, he is a State Senator for Rhode Island District 16 representing Central Falls and Pawtucket.

Jonathan E. Collins, Ph.D. is a writer, political scientist, and education policy scholar. Dr. Collins is an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University and an assistant professor of political science (by courtesy) at Columbia University. Collins also serves as the Associate Director of the Teachers College, Columbia University Center for Educational Equity. Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia University, Collins was the Mary Tefft and John Hazen White Sr. Assistant Professor of Education, Political Science (by courtesy), and International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Collins is also a regular contributor to Phi Delta Kappan, where he writes a monthly column called "Policy Solutions."

John N. Friedman is the inaugural Vascellaro Family Dean of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. School of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and the Briger Family Distinguished Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs.

Dean Friedman is a founding co-director of Opportunity Insights. His work is rooted in big-data analysis, with a focus on topics like inequality, poverty, education, and tax policy.

John Major Eason is an Associate Professor of Sociology and International and Public Affairs at Brown University. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Professor Eason, a native of Evanston, Illinois received a B.A. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a M.P.P. from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Before entering graduate school, he was a church-based community organizer focusing on housing and criminal justice issues. He also served as a political organizer for then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama.

His research interest challenges existing models and develops new theories of community, health, race, punishment, and rural/urban processes in several ways. First, by tracing the emergence of the rural ghetto he establishes a new conceptual model of rural neighborhoods. Next, by demonstrating the function of the ghetto in rural communities he extends concentrated disadvantage from urban to rural community process. These relationships are explored through his book, "Big House on the Prairie: Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation" (University of Chicago Press). He uses multi-method, multi-level approaches in empirical investigations ranging from imprisonment, prisoner reentry, murder, healthcare access, and health disparities across the rural-urban continuum.