Dr. Michal Kurlaender

Biography

Michal Kurlaender is a Chancellor’s Leadership Professor at UC Davis and investigates students’ educational pathways, particularly K-12 postsecondary alignment and access to higher education. She focuses on alternative pathways to college, college readiness, and community colleges compared to four-year colleges. By analyzing national data, she closely examines administrative data from California’s public higher education systems—including the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges. Her work addresses the causes and consequences of racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender inequalities in education throughout the life course, along with the impact of institutional policies designed to reduce educational inequality. Kurlaender's studies explore the influence of racial and ethnic diversity on student outcomes, the effectiveness of K-12 school desegregation efforts, and ongoing inequalities in segregated schools. She was the Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in 2017-18 and is an elected member of the National Academy of Education.

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