Do you want to come to do research with me at UCLA?
Enrolling at UCLA as a Ph.D. student and working on a research project provides invaluable mentoring and development opportunities. It also allows you to get funding for your PhD through graduate student research assistantships (GSRs) and to gain significant academic experience.
My advisees usually see themselves in the future as academics (professors), research or policy analysts in think tanks or similar organizations, analysts or evaluators for school districts, or doing development work in international organizations. If you are interested in working with me, please carefully consider the following:
Make sure our interests are aligned. Below are things I’m either currently working on or have a significant interest in
Policies to improve teaching/learning for English-Learner classified students
Dual-language immersion policy
Student mobility
Anything having to do with education policy or educational program evaluation in Latin American countries (mainly Mexico)
Teacher labor markets and teachers more generally from a policy perspective (especially bilingual teachers).
[NOTE: I don't advise students who are studying language or teaching from an educational psychology, cultural, pedagogical, or anthropological perspective. If that is your jam, check out other faculty in the Language, Literacy, and Learning collaborative at UCLA. ]
My expertise is in quantitative education policy analysis. Our collaboration will be most successful if you already do the following:
Have training in quantitative analysis. By this, I mean you have taken several statistics and probability courses, regression analysis, etc. People with economics, sociology, public policy, or political science degrees usually have this training.
You know your way around data clean-up and management (knowledge of administrative data is a plus) and can program using statistical software such as R, Python, Stata, etc., with or without AI engines. You should understand these methods well and aren't merely vibe coding.
You enjoy talking to people and are not afraid of getting out of your comfort zone. You enjoy the puzzle-solving aspect of research and believe in the power of education to transform lives. You are psyched that we get to do this for a living.
If all of this applies to you, please email me at lsantibanez@ucla.edu. I would love to hear from you!
PS. UCLA's admissions cycle usually closes on (or around) early December. Students are guaranteed 4-year funding packages. We are selective with admissions and strive for PhD cohorts of 10-12 students (total).