The William T. Grant Foundation has chosen five early-career researchers to study education access and other issues.
Each of the 2015 scholars receives $350,000 for a five-year study of education policy issues:
- Leah D. Doane of Arizona State University will study how stress and health issues affect Latino students’ transition to college, as well as what supports on campus or in their family or community can help ease the transition.
- Matthew A. Kraft of Brown University will identify teaching practices that improve students’ non-cognitive development, as well as how professional coaching can improve teachers’ practice in that area.
- Parag Pathak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will study how universal enrollment systems, like the one in New York City schools, affect students’ access to individual schools.
- Laura Tach of Cornell University will study how a complex family structure, in which parents and children may not be biologically related or may not live together, affects students academically.
- Eve Tuck of the State University of New York, New Paltz, will analyze how President Obama’s policy of deferred action on immigration for those who arrive in the country as children affects migrant children and youth.
“This is a top-notch group of early-career academics,” Vivian Tseng, vice president for the program, said in a statement. “They are tackling important questions facing young people in order to inform future education, family, and immigration policies.”