Dr. Michal Kurlaender

Michal Kurlaender investigates students’ educational pathways, in particular K-12 and postsecondary alignment, and access to and success in higher education. She has expertise on alternative pathways to college and college readiness at both community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. In addition to working with national data, Kurlaender works closely with administrative data from all three of California’s public higher education sectors—the University of California, the California State University and the California Community College systems.

Michal Kurlaender investigates students’ educational pathways, in particular K-12 and postsecondary alignment, and access to and success in higher education. She has expertise on alternative pathways to college and college readiness at both community colleges and four-year colleges and universities. In addition to working with national data, Kurlaender works closely with administrative data from all three of California’s public higher education sectors—the University of California, the California State University and the California Community College systems.

In 2017-18 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and in 2020 Professor Kurlaender was elected into the National Academy of Education.

Kurlaender is a faculty co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), the California Education Lab, and lead researcher of Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research. 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.

[Source: https://education.ucdavis.edu/faculty-profile/michal-kurlaender]