Michal Kurlaender

Michal Kurlaender is professor of education policy in the School of Education at the University of California, Davis. She is also a co-director of the California Education Lab and a faculty director at Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). Her work focuses on inequalities in access to college and success in college; alignment of public K–12 and postsecondary systems of education; and alternative pathways to college and careers. She works closely with administrative data from all three of California’s public higher education sectors: California State University, the University of California, and California Community Colleges. Kurlaender is lead researcher at Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research at UC Davis and a research affiliate with the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and has been elected into the National Academy of Education. She serves on the executive committee of the Center for Poverty and Inequality at UC Davis, is an affiliated scholar with the Student Experience Research Network (formerly the Mindset Scholars Network), and a Strategic Advisor to The Education Trust—West. Kurlaender received her PhD in education policy from Harvard University.

updated 2025