Susanna specializes in the economics of education and the relationship between schools and federal, state and local policies. Her research addresses teacher policy, looking specifically at how teachers' preferences affect the distribution of teaching quality across schools, how pre-service coursework requirements affect the quality of teacher candidates, and how reforms affect teachers' career decisions. She also studies school leadership and school finance, for example looking at how the structure of state finance systems affects the level and distribution of resources across schools. Susanna is a member of the National Board for Education Sciences, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, member of the Executive Board of the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Research Team
Faculty Director
Susanna Loeb
Researchers and Staff
Sarah Bardack
Sarah was a doctoral student in the Developmental and Psychological Sciences program at Stanford University and a recipient of the IES fellowship training grant. She holds a B.A. in French and Comparative Literature from New York University and an M.P.P. from the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, where she wrote a master’s thesis examining the determinants of participation in early childhood development programs in India.
Erika Byun
Erika Byun is a Research Assistant at the Stanford University Center for Education Policy Analysis. She graduated from Brown University in 2017 with a B.A. degree in Public Policy, with a focus on education, and a B.A. degree in Economics. Her research interests include access and barriers to support for English Learner students and the economics of education.
Hans Fricke
Hans is postdoctoral research fellow at the Stanford University Center for Education Policy Analysis and the Director of Research at CEPA Labs. He received his Master’s (Diplom Univ.) in International Economics from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in 2011 and his Ph.D. in Economics and Finance from the University of St. Gallen in 2016. His research interest focus on education policy, technology in education, and causal analysis.
Kristine Gaffaney
Kristine Gaffaney is the Operations Coordinator for CEPA Labs. Prior to joining CEPA Labs, Kristine was part of the Migrant Education team at the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development. She received her B.A. in Child Development from San Jose State University.
Collaborating Scholars
Christopher Candelaria
Christopher was a doctoral candidate in the Education Policy and Economics of Education program. He graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a B.A. degree in Economics. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for four years as a research associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. His current research interests include teacher labor markets, education finance, Federal and state-level accountability policies, and quantitative methods in research. At Stanford, Christopher obtained his M.A. degree in Economics in 2014.
Lisa Chamberlain
Lisa Chamberlain, MD, MPH is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. Dr. Chamberlain cares for patients in East Palo Alto at the Ravenswood Family Health Center. She founded and is the medical director of the Stanford Pediatric Advocacy Program which oversees community pediatrics and advocacy training for all pediatric residents at Stanford. In 2005 she founded the Stanford Advocacy Track (StAT) which supports a subset of residents interested in pursuing careers to address child health inequity in the United States and abroad. At the Stanford School of Medicine she directs the Scholarly Concentration in Community Health, an area of scholarly focus for medical students interested in health disparities. She is a frequent lecturer in a wide range of settings at Stanford and teaches a popular course on the social and environmental determinants of health. For her work in medical student and resident education she has received two of Stanford’s highest teaching awards. She has received two national awards for her innovative work: she was the inaugural recipient of the Institute of Medicine as a Profession’s Physician Merit Award in 2008 and received the Academic Pediatric Association’s Advocacy Award in 2009. She has been selected as CATCH and ROME visiting professors. Her research examines access to care for impoverished children in California, focusing on children with chronic illness. She co-leads a statewide collaboration in California, uniting 13 pediatric training programs across the state to develop, strengthen and disseminate community pediatrics and advocacy curriculum. She is co-founder and co-chair of the Speak Up For Kids Advocacy Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Chapter 1, which is the first such committee in the United States.
Susana Claro
Susana was an economics of education doctoral student from Chile. Her research interests focus on low income students, teachers, and socio-emotional skills. Her advisors were Susanna Loeb and Carol Dweck. Susana is the co-founder of Enseña Chile, which is part of the Teach for All network since 2008. Prior to that, she was advisor of the Secretary of Education in Chile to help schools recover from the earthquake and worked on developing collaborative software for classrooms in different schools around the world. She is member of Advisory Boards of Comunidad Mujer, the Global Learning Lab at Teach for All, Impulso Docente, and others. She has taught students in the US and Chile from K-16. She graduated as a civil engineer and computer scientist from Chile, and earned a Masters in Education from Harvard University. Currently, she works as an Assistant Professor at the School of Government at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Kalena Cortes
Kalena Cortes (kcortes@tamu.edu) is an Associate Professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Her research focuses on issues of equity and access, in particular, identifying educational policies that help disadvantaged students at the K-12 and postsecondary levels. Her recent work includes the effects of double-dose algebra and course scheduling policies on student achievement, affirmative action policies in higher education, and the effect of legal status on college enrollment of immigrant youth. Cortes’ research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, American Educational Research Association, Greater Texas Foundation, and the Institute of Education Sciences U.S. Department of Education. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Christopher Doss
Christopher Doss completed his doctorate at the Stanford Graduate School of Education in June 2017 where he was affiliated with the Center for Education Policy Analysis. He received his B.S. from Brown University in Chemistry, his Ed.M. in teaching at the secondary level from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and his M.A. in Economics from Stanford University. Christopher’s dissertation focused on causal evaluations of early childhood policies and interventions. Two of his papers analyzed the effect of a new state-mandated early childhood education program in California. His third paper looked at how to improve texting interventions that encourage parents to the support the literacy development of their kindergarteners. In addition to early childhood education, Christopher is interested in how educational technologies can be used to improve student outcomes, personalize learning experiences, and test pedagogical approaches to education. He also has work on the effect of K-12 accountability policies. He specializes in using quantitative methods and causal inference to field policy relevant research. Christopher is currently an Associate Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation.
Graduate Students
Erin Fahle
Erin Fahle (efahle@stanford.edu) is a doctoral candidate in Education Policy at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She will complete her Ph.D. in 2018, after earning a B.S. in Mathematics (2008) and a M.S. in Applied Mathematics and Statistics (2009) from Georgetown University. At Stanford, Erin has developed and applied complex statistical methods to study the variation in students’ educational experiences across the U.S., with a focus on understanding gender inequality in educational outcomes.
Marlene Orozco
Marlene (morozco@stanford.edu) is a doctoral student in Sociology and an IES fellow. She also holds a B.A. from Stanford and an Ed.M. in Education Policy and Management from Harvard. Prior to returning to Stanford, she was a 4th grade lead teacher at a charter school in San Jose. Her research interests include the intersection of education and immigration, parental involvement and civic engagement in school movements.
Henry Shi
Zhaolei (Henry) Shi is a doctoral student in the Economics of Education program at Stanford university. Henry's interests include higher education, vocational education, and education in the work place. Henry holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Fudan University and an Ed.M. from Harvard University. Prior to his doctoral studies, Henry worked on randomized experiments to improving educational outcomes in China with Stanford's Rural Education Action Program.
David Song
David (dssong09@stanford.edu) is a doctoral student in higher education at the Graduate School of Education and an IES Fellow. His research interests center around achievement inequalities among first- and second-generation immigrant minorities, STEM learning, and transfer pathways from community colleges to universities and four-year colleges. He has previously worked with the STEM Transfer Students Success Initiative in Baltimore. He has a M.A. in economic policy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a B.A.
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Maddie Bradshaw
Class of 2018
John Horsley
Class of 2019
