2014 - 2015 Academic Year Fellows

Deena Bernett

 

Deena is a graduate student working with Dr. Susan Levine and Dr. Daniel Casasanto. She holds a B.S. in biology from Brown University and an M.A. in cognitive studies in education from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. Prior to starting her graduate career, she spent nine years working as a middle and high school teacher in urban public and charter schools.

Deena’s research addresses the mechanisms by which humans understand and work with abstract concepts, particularly number. She is particularly interested in the ways that humans use concrete perceptual experiences to make sense of number.

 

Cristina Carazza

Cristina is currently a research Scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago. Cristina graduated from the Department of Psychology in June 2021. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 2013.  Following graduation, she worked as a Research Assistant in the Cognition Learning and Development Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Cristina works with the Getting on Track Project for her Apprenticeship. This project works with Head Start teachers to deliver an assessment and instruction tools that will help them track the math development of students and ensure they are on track for kindergarten entry.   

Cristina is interested in research into early math learning, specifically regarding the malleable factors in the early learning environment that affect children’s understanding and future academic achievement and how small variations in instructional variables affect the knowledge children construct from learning experiences. She is also interested in the potential role of social variables in either diminishing or enhancing conceptual development and future academic success. Cristina’s dissertation title is “Parent Attitudes about Young Children’s Math Learning: Connections to Parent Math Support and Child Math Outcomes”.

Sarah Cashdollar

Sarah Cashdollar is an interdisciplinary researcher who works to understand factors that predict positive postsecondary education, training, and work outcomes for all youth.

With training in human development, sociology, and education, Dr. Cashdollar’s interests center on issues of stratification and equity in youth transitions from high school to postsecondary education and work. Her current work examines the pathways that Illinois high school students take to postsecondary education and work, analyzing patterns that relate to positive workforce outcomes for diverse students across Illinois. She has published in scholarly journals on education and adolescent development, and her research has been funded by the Institute of Education Sciences as well as by foundation and private grants. As a former elementary teacher, she is passionate about conducting research that is responsive to the needs of educational practitioners, and she regularly presents research findings to applied audiences.

Cashdollar holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Comparative Human Development from The University of Chicago and a B.A. in anthropology from Dartmouth College.

 

Kallie Clark

 

Kallie is currently a Senior Research Data Analyst on the Mental Health Services Accountability & Oversight Commission, UC-San Francisco. Kallie graduated from the School of Social Service Administration (SSA) in April 2021. Kallie obtained a degree from California State University, Fullerton in 2005 and completed her Master of Social Work from SSA in 2015, having previously received a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008.  Kallie has served in a variety of teaching and counseling roles in the Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago. 

Her research focuses on examining K-16 education systems to identify point of leverage to increase equity in postsecondary outcomes for youth, specifically around college completion.  Kallie’s dissertation is titled “Postsecondary Pathways in Chicago Public Schools.

Ezra Karger

Ezra is currently an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Ezra graduated from the Department of Economics in August 2021. Ezra also obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in 2014. While a student at the University, Ezra was actively engaged in research analyzing student achievement and test-taking measures.  He is working on several projects involving data from Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Ezra’s research interests include labor economics, the economics of education, and the measurement of inequality. He has recently started a project that analyzes national trends in high school graduation rates with the aim of identifying the root causes of the large increase in high school graduation rates between 1999 and the present, especially for blacks and Hispanics. Ezra’s dissertation is titled: “Essays on the Measurement of Income in Economic Analysis”. 

 

Darnell Leatherwood is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Saint Louis University School of Education and National Science Foundation Fellow in Advance Quantitative Research Methods for STEM Education Research at the University of Chicago (in partnership with Michigan State University). He is also Faculty Affiliate at the University of Michigan School of Social Work’s Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being and serves as a Collaborating Researcher for the Men of Math (M2) Fellowship Program at Loyola University Chicago’s Institute for Racial Justice.

He is a Young Scholar on The Journal of Negro Education Editorial/Advisory Board out of Howard University in Washington DC, holds publicly elected office as a Board Member on the Matteson School District 162 Board of Education, and is the founder of the Black Male Educators Alliance of Illinois (BMEAIllinois). In 2017, he started the Black Boys Shine campaign [501(c)(3)] which is purposed to illuminate the character and contributions of Black boys and men nationally/internationally. Darnell is also a former Illinois Board of Higher Education Fellow, Expert Mentor for the IVenture Accelerator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a founding member of Thrive Chicago and President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper (MBKChicago) Action Team.

Darnell holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Welfare from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, Certificate in Education Sciences from the University of Chicago Committee on Education, M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago Division of the Social Sciences, and B.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Gies College of Business.  His research and teaching interests include education, social policy/inequality/inequity, adolescent development & identity formation, race & racism, and quantitative research methods.