Rachel B. Baker

Rachel B.Baker is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She was recently distinguished as the UCI School of Education’s Honoree for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Baker has also been been appointed fellowships by the National Academy of Education (NAE) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) along with the Albert Shanker Institute, the Jack Kent Foundation, and Stanford University. Her research focuses on inequalities in access to and success in higher education using behavioral economic models of decision making and quasi-experimental and experimental methods. She has studied transfer patterns and policies, agent based simulations of race- and socioeconomic status (SES)-based affirmative action policies, students' knowledge of labor market outcomes, and descriptive and experimental work on persistence in online classes. She works closely with the California Community Colleges (CCC). Her professional experience includes teaching elementary school in the Marshall Islands, working as a literacy specialist at a school for the deaf, and coordinating college readiness programming at The Steppingstone Foundation in Boston. Dr. Baker holds a PhD in higher education and education policy and an MA in economics jointly from Stanford University along with a BA in psychology and a teaching certification in grades K–6 from Dartmouth College.

updated 2024