Hi! I’m a second year Ph.D. student in Education Policy and Program Evaluation. My research is driven by a central question: How can education systems be adapted to protect and rebuild human capital when faced with large-scale shocks like conflict, displacement, and political crises? My academic and personal journey, which started in Nicaragua, has given me a strong motivation to address learning inequalities caused by political instability and forced migration.
I focus on designing and evaluating scalable interventions that can reduce these inequalities. A core part of my approach is to integrate robust psychosocial support within educational settings to ensure all children can learn effectively. The centerpiece of my current work is a large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Armenia that I co-lead across 450 public schools. This project is designed to meet the educational and psychosocial needs of children displaced by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I also recently co-led another RCT in Ukraine with over 10,000 students, where we embedded mental health components into an online tutoring program and saw positive impacts on learning outcomes and student well-being. My ultimate goal is to produce rigorous research that can inform social policies and create effective pathways toward more just societies.