Leadership & Management

I lead the Equity research program at LinkedIn's Economic Graph Research Institute. In this capacity, I manage the portfolio of equity projects our team pursues, setting the research vision and leading several of the projects within the program. Through this program, I additionally led the development of a new white paper series, working paper series, new models for academic collaboration, and coordination with external stakeholders. 

I also founded and lead the equity research working group at LinkedIn, which connects researchers across teams at LinkedIn who are working on equity projects. I also help lead the economics technical leadership group at LinkedIn. 

I co-directed the Center for Causal Inference (CCI) from 2018 through 2022. CCI is a methodological center and repository of expertise housed within the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Under my leadership, CCI:

• Envisioned, planned, and hosted a virtual causal inference methodology symposium for academic and RAND researchers, with 10 presenters and 150 participants from 10 different countries;

• Provided over 10 grants to RAND researchers in causal inference methodology and its applications;

• Began and administered 3 CCI Fellowships for Pardee doctoral students;

• Hosted over 20 brownbag seminars from RAND researchers and external academic researchers in causal inference.

I have been principal investigator (PI) or co-principal investigator on 10 research grants and contracts with a total value of over 6 million dollars; these are listed in awards. For each of these projects, I have led or helped lead the entire process, from the proposal writing to the research and analysis and project management to publication and dissemination. I have managed small and large research teams, as well as subcontracts of external workers.  Here is a small sample of some of the projects I have led and the roles I played:

• Summer Career Pathways Training Evaluation: This 5-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Labor implemented a randomized controlled trial of job training among low-income workers in New Orleans. I oversaw all aspects of the study, which involved an implementation analysis, outcome analysis, and cost-benefit analysis; survey design and implementation, focus groups, and interviews; community engagement and collecting data from public and private entities. As PI, I managed a team of over 10 researchers as well as subcontracted workers assisting with focus groups and survey collection. I helped see the project to a successful conclusion.

• STEM workforce trends following postsecondary degree attainment: The American Petroleum Institute commissioned this study to evaluate the pipeline from STEM education to STEM labor, with a focus on differences in attrition among minorities and women. As PI, I led the study design and evaluation and oversaw dissemination. I helped plan, presented the findings at, and was part of the discussion group in a final event, a roundtable with leaders from community organizations across the nation.

• Benchmarking workforce diversity in the travel/tourism industry in CA : In a study funded by Visit California, we explored the levels and trends in minority workforce in travel/tourism and other industries in California, both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. As PI, I designed the study, oversaw the analysis, and led the writing of the report, as well as led the interactions between the project team and the client throughout the study. 

From 2021-2022, I served as an on-call quality assurance (QA) manager for RAND Education and Labor. RAND's QA process is critical to its mission of creating objective, high quality research to impact public policy. Each RAND deliverable undergoes a thorough QA review similar to an academic journal reviewing process, with at least two reviewers (typically, one internal to RAND and one external) with expertise in the topic and methodology reviewing the report. The QA manager's job is to oversee the process of review, to manage the flow of the report through the review process, to provide overarching quality assurance, and to interact with the reviewers while determining the decision of the review process. RAND's quality standards can be found here. 

In addition to the several cases in which I have been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on a project, there have been several projects where I have been the quantitative lead. In this role, I oversee the quantitative analysis plan and execution, often overseeing a small team of researchers in pursuing rigorous quantitative analysis.  This has occurred several times and relies on my ability to both understand the causal inference and statistical implications as well as manage the team of researchers involved in the analysis. Below I list a small selection of many such projects (more examples can be seen in Research & Publications)

• Preparing School Leaders for Success: Evaluation of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals Program, 2012-2017: In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the new leaders program preparing principals. I led the analysis design and implementation. A prior report in this series to which I also contributed was rated by the What Work's Clearinghouse of the U.S. Department of Education as meeting WWC standards with reservations, a significant signal of the quality and importance of the findings. 

• Research Funding for Women's Health: Modeling Societal Impacts: I led the quantitative modeling and analysis of a series of reports funded by Women's Health Access Matters. This involved microsimulation lifecycle models to simulate disease progression and resulting costs and return on investment to health research.  

• Principal Pipelines: A Feasible, Affordable, and Effective Way for Districts to Improve Schools: In this study, we evaluated an initiative funded by the Wallace Foundation to improve student outcomes through strengthened the manner in which principals are recruited, trained, and mentored. I envisioned the empirical design and led the coding and analysis.

• Education, Employment, and Wages in the Appalachia Region: as part of a consortium of partners in the Appalachia Partnership Initiative and through a series of reports, I oversaw the evaluation of benchmarking trends in a regional labor and education analysis and led the authoring of one of the reports.