University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I am a PhD student in Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying policy, leadership, and school improvement. My work focuses on early childhood policy implementation, particularly how publicly funded pre-K programs are translated into local practice. I am currently studying North Carolina’s NC Pre-K program, using county-level data to examine how funding, capacity, and local decision making shape enrollment and access. I am especially interested in how routine administrative processes such as classroom placement, partnerships, and enrollment systems influence which children are ultimately served. My work is grounded in an improvement perspective, with a focus on how systems operate in practice and how data can be used to support more equitable access over time. Alongside my research, I have experience in early literacy instruction and curriculum development, which continues to shape how I think about the relationship between policy and classroom practice. I am interested in connecting improvement research with policy and implementation in ways that are both analytically rigorous and practically useful.