Assistant professor of education and public policy at the Pennsylvania State University
LEADERSHIP
Maithreyi Gopalan
Maithreyi Gopalan is an associate professor at the University of Oregon. Previously, she was an associate professor of education and public policy at The Pennsylvania State University where she was also a Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) co-funded faculty. She also served as the inaugural data science impact fellow in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education in 2023-24. She is interested in conducting policy-relevant research that examines the causes and consequences of racial and socioeconomic disparities in students’ educational and psychosocial outcomes—such as school discipline, achievement, learning mindsets, and sense of belonging—using interdisciplinary, social science perspectives. She has used data collected and disseminated by OCR extensively in her studies and brings her unique data analytical skills to promote evidence-based policymaking that centers educational equity.
Education
—Ph.D., Public Affairs, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington
—MA, Economics, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, Maharashtra, India
—BA, Economics, Stella Maris College, University of Madras, Chennai, India
Areas of Expertise
—School discipline disparities
—Civil Rights in Education
—Health Disparities
—Social Psychological Insights for Policy
—Health-Education nexus
Relevant Publications