Graduate Student

Ilke Bayazitli

Ilke Bayazitli is a doctoral student in the School Psychology program at UC Berkeley. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Boğaziçi University in 2021. She then received her master's degree in Psychological Science with a concentration in Social, Personality, and Affective Science from San Francisco State University in 2023. She has been involved in research on the psychosocial factors that are associated with the well-being of adolescents, including discrimination based on different identities, educational experiences, time perspective, and substance use.


Ilke'...

Ankita Rakhe

Ankita Rakhe (she/her) is a doctoral student in Cohort 2 of the Leaders in Equity and Democracy program. She has been a Student Affairs practitioner for 20 years with a deep investment in diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy; conflict mediation and restorative justice; and leadership coaching. She has previously worked at The Ohio State University; Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas); Santa Clara University and Stanford University. She currently works here at the University of California, Berkeley as the Associate Dean for Student Engagement where she oversees a cluster of...

Umara Hansen

Umara Hansen (she/her) is a third-year doctoral student in the School Psychology program at UC Berkeley. She graduated with the highest honors, Summa Cum Laude, from the University of Ottawa, where she earned a B.Sc. in Psychology and conducted research on the impact of stress on well-being using fMRI measures. Before graduate school, Umara served as Outreach Lead for Anxiety Canada and worked as a research assistant in labs across Canada and the United States, including the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Lab at the University of British Columbia and the Stress and Development Lab at...

Kelly Billings

Kelly is a fifth year doctoral candidate at the Berkeley School of Education in the Learning Sciences and Human Development cluster. Kelly’s work is deeply informed by her teaching experience in Oakland, California and former students. In pursuing a graduate degree, Kelly hopes to highlight the amazing work Oakland students and STEM teachers are doing to integrate local justice issues into classroom projects and conversations.

Kelly's current research focuses on collaborating with Bay Area teachers to design learning environments that support students in using data science to...

Xingyao (Doria) Xiao

Doria Xiao is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Research Methodologies at the University of California, Berkeley, with an anticipated graduation in Spring 2025. Her research focuses on psychometrics and quantitative methods in education, with particular emphasis on Bayesian statistical modeling, latent variable modeling, longitudinal and hierarchical modeling, as well as integrating machine learning into educational assessments. A significant part of her work addresses identifiability challenges in Bayesian Growth Mixture Models (GMMs) and improving model evaluation.

Doria's...

Jose Aguilar

Jose R. Aguilar Jr. is an enthusiastic and driven scholar-educator. He brings a wealth of experience and a solid commitment to addressing systemic issues in education. Born out of his personal experiences as a first-generation college student and a keen observer of the challenges faced by underrepresented communities, Jose has dedicated his career to dismantling the barriers that hinder the educational aspirations of Latino students.

Jose is a doctoral student and Computational Research for Equity in the Legal System (CRELS) Fellow in the Policy, Politics, and Leadership program at...

Mark Pommer

Mark Pommer is a doctoral candidate in the UC Berkeley School Psychology program. Mark received his EdS in school psychology from Columbia University. His current research is dedicated to translating psychological research findings into applied school and clinical psychology practice.

Mark is also involved in research that utilizes a risk and resiliency framework to study the psychology of hope, the neuropsychology of ADHD, the function of play in human development, international school psychology, and assistive technology research and design.

Mark’s return to...

Kevin Quintero

Kevin Quintero (He/Him/His) is a PhD candidate in Policy, Politics, and Leadership at UC Berkeley’s School of Education. Kevin’s research interests are using methodological and theoretical approaches to reveal the causes of political, social, and educational inequalities. His current research examines how the expansion of voting rights in California creates opportunities for minority groups to increase representation on school boards and influence educational policymaking. In particular, his dissertation shows how the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) has reshaped electoral systems for...

Ashley Zhou

Ashley Zhou is a student of the Joint Doctoral program in special education with UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on structures of race, class, gender, and disability in special education through the role of the paraprofessional. Analyzing historical archives, she examines the labor formation of paraprofessionals and special education teachers in the aftermath of Brown. Her work also incorporates ethnography to examine the consequences of this labor formation for contemporary challenges in special education. Through this investigation of...

Emily Reich

Emily Reich (she/her) is a third-year doctoral student in the Policy, Politics, and Leadership cluster in UC Berkeley's School of Education. She comes to graduate school with questions about the ways in which bureaucracy and the school staff who wield it shape the educational lives of marginalized and minitoritized students.

Prior to Berkeley, Emily taught Special Education in California and Israel. She received her BS in Special Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Her current research projects include studying how schools across California made use of state and...