Rachel B. Baker

Rachel B.Baker is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She has been distinguished as the UCI School of Education’s Honoree for Teaching Excellence and has been been appointed fellowships by the National Academy of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences along with the Albert Shanker Institute, the Jack Kent Foundation, and Stanford University. Using behavioral economic models of decision-making as well as quasi-experimental and experimental methods, Baker has studied transfer patterns and policies; agent-based simulations of race- and socioeconomic- 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. 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. Baker received her MA in economics and her PhD in higher education and education policy from Stanford University.

updated 2024