Research

To answer questions related to education and employment, I prioritize working with practitioners and policymakers. I was a part-time employee with the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce for more than 3 years and still partner with them on multiple projects. I also have active projects with Nevada and Tennessee. I aim to pair rigorous research with policy relevance and prioritze publishing practitioner-facing reports (see below).

I co-founded the Workforce Almanac at Harvard's Project on Workforce, where we created a first-of-its-kind publicly-available dataset capturing workforce development providers across the United States. A new program-level dataset will be available in summer 2026.

I am formally trained as an economist of education, though my work also utilizes sociological research methods and qualitative interviewing.

Dissertation

My dissertation work, titled "Essays on Workforce Development," is made up of a 3 papers and focuses on career and technical education, community and technical colleges, and the workforce development sector outside of the traditional education system:

Career and Technical Education Access, Course-Taking, and Outcomes: Evidence from Ohio (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: While traditional vocational education focused on imparting technical skills to prepare students for post-high-school employment, 77 percent of high school students, both college- and career-bound, participate in today’s career and technical education (CTE). Recent federal legislation and the increased importance of preparing students to be college- and work-ready have led to a new statewide prioritization of CTE that is both academic and technical in nature. As CTE course-taking becomes more common and seeks to overcome a history of tracking historically-marginalized students into pathways with limited educational opportunities, it is increasingly important that we understand how it is offered, who it is offered to, and the effects of encouraging students to pursue it. Using statewide administrative data from Ohio that follows students from high school through college completion, I model students’ access to and participation in high school CTE course-taking and estimate how this training impacts their future human capital investment. Access, participation, and outcomes vary depending on how CTE is offered. While race-based, income-based, and ability-based differences in course-taking still exist, they are much less systematic than in traditional vocational education. However, gender-based differences are still significant. CTE participants and concentrators are more likely to graduate from high school on time (5pp, 11pp) and attend (3pp, 5pp) and complete at (0.6pp, 0.9pp) 2-year colleges, but much less likely to attend (-8pp, -10pp) and complete at (-4pp, -4pp) 4-year colleges. I suggest that while today’s CTE likely creates pathways to college, it may be limited to enrolling in 2-year colleges, especially in districts where CTE is offered at off-campus public career centers. Benefits are particularly strong for students in districts where CTE is offered comprehensively, and students taking courses in traditionally white-collar industries.

*Note: This work is funded by the NAEd/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship.

Latest version

Smoothing Transitions to College: The Impacts of Dual Enrollment Policy Change

Abstract: Dual enrollment is increasingly one strategy states use to improve college enrollment and completion rates. But how effective are dual enrollment policies in achieving this goal? I explore the effects of the implementation of the College Credit Plus program in Ohio, which aims to create more access to dual enrollment courses for students in grades 7-12. This program replaces the Postsecondary Enrollment Opportunities Program (PSEOP) and reduces course-taking costs for schools and students, mandates relationships between schools and public colleges, and lowers barriers to course entry. I then use the timing of the implementation of this policy to instrument for dual enrollment access and estimate the effects of dual enrollment on high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion for students induced into dual enrollment course-taking through the passing of the policy.

The Geography of the Workforce Development Sector

Abstract: Almost 70 million American workers with a high school diploma but without a bachelor’s degree are skilled through alternative routes. As workers look for entry points into higher-wage career trajectories, and employers look for untapped talent, short-term, post-high-school workforce training opportunities where learners gain work-relevant skills in service of job attainment have grown in importance as pathways to mobility. While 2-year institutions provide much of this training beyond the high school level, there is a variety of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that provide educational and training services. However, because of its fragmented nature, system-level data about the US workforce development training providers is sparse or incomplete. Therefore, we have limited information about the options available to workers looking to gain job-relevant skills. We compile and analyze a novel dataset that describes the nature and location of nearly 17,000 training providers. First, we create a taxonomy of organizations, including institutions of higher education, apprenticeship programs offered by employers and unions, non-profit job training programs, and for-profit training programs. Then, we analyze how job training offerings differ across locations (states and local labor markets), and how the skills they teach align with in-demand jobs. We also focus on the equity of these job training offerings by utilizing a model that maps training seekers' choice sets. Additionally, we analyze whether non-higher education organizations are more likely to be present in areas that are underserved by public options such as community colleges.

Working Paper

Workforce Almanac

As a Research Lead at the Harvard Project on Workforce, I co-built and manage the Workforce Almanac, a first-of-its-kind, publicly-available dataset that maps nearly 17,000 workforce training providers in the United States. The Almanac is an effort to create a comprehensive snapshot of the workforce training system, overcoming training types that have traditionally been explored in silos. We try to honor the experiences of the more than 70M workers in the US with high school diplomas but without BAs who want to pursue shorter-term skills training. Our goals are to more effectively identify who the workforce development sector is serving and underserving, better understand the types of jobs the workforce development sector is training for, and ultimately orient resource allocation and systemic change towards equity, effective programs, and areas of highest need.

Check out the interactive data portal at https://workforcealmanac.com/, and our accompanying working papers here & here.

Reports & Articles

Workforce Development:

"Updating and Expanding the Workforce Almanac: A System-Level View of U.S. Workforce Training Providers" (w/ Joseph Fuller, Tessa Forshaw, Jacob Hale, Nathalie Gazzaneo, Gani Simsek; Harvard Project on Workforce, 2025)

Featured by WorkRise

"Empowering Imperial County: A Comprehensive Workforce and Economic Development Strategy for Harnessing the Lithium Opportunity" (w/ Elie Alhajjar, Peter Nguyen, Ashley Woo, Lester Ledgister, Jr., AK Keskin, Amanda Perez, Yoselín Mayoral; RAND, 2025)

Featured in NYT

"Meeting the Needs of Massachusetts Veterans: An Assessment and Draft Strategy for the Commonwealth" (w/ Stephen Dalzell, Rachel Slama, Catria Gadwah-Meaden, Lauren Kelly, Benjamin Trachik, Michael T. Wilson, Kate Giglio, Carrie M. Farmer; RAND, 2025)

"Leading States Offer A Roadmap to Jobs of the Future" (w/ Jonah Kushner, Lindsay Daugherty; Work Shift Commentary, 2025)

"The Workforce Almanac: A System-Level View of U.S. Workforce Training Providers" (Harvard Project on Workforce, 2023)