Catie Connolly

Catie Connolly is an education and policy research associate with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) at Stanford University. She is a developmental psychologist by training with a specialization in research in educational settings and research–practice partnerships. Her research focuses on understanding social-emotional development in early childhood. She is especially interested in developing assessments for diverse early education populations to accurately capture children’s foundational social-emotional competencies and promote more equitable educational research and practice. In her dissertation project within the Stanford–SFUSD Research Practice Partnership, she incorporated perspectives from children, parents, teachers, and trained assessors to better understand social-emotional development across racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse populations. Connolly was previously an instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and Department of Psychology. She has also worked at the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) as a graduate teaching consultant, helping graduate instructors improve their instructional practices with a focus on promoting educational equity. She was formerly a research assistant in the Laboratory for Developmental Studies at Harvard University, studying game-based educational interventions in the United States, India, and Ghana in partnership with the World Bank. Connolly earned her BA in psychology and English literature from Columbia University and her PhD in education from Stanford University.

updated 2026