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.

Kurlaender’s work focuses on the causes and consequences of racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender inequalities through the education life course, and the impact of institutional policies and practices aimed at attenuating educational inequality.  She also studies the impact of racial and ethnic diversity on student outcomes, including mandatory and voluntary K-12 school desegregation efforts, persistent inequalities in segregated schools, and diversity in postsecondary settings. 

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.