Mark J. Chin

I am an Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Inequality in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College.

I study how public education in the U.S. can help combat racial and socioeconomic inequality. In my research, I draw on the economics of education, psychology, and sociology literatures and use rigorous quantitative methodology to identify the causal impacts of different policies, programs, and interventions in schools on students' outcomes. My current projects focus on school integration, school choice, racial bias in education, and how schools affect students' racial attitudes, prosocial behaviors, and equity-aligned sociopolitical preferences. My research is motivated by the belief that key to addressing persistent disparities in society is uncovering how schools might reduce negative outgroup prejudices, increase prosociality, and foster widespread commitment to advancing equity.

My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, the Economics of Education Review, Educational Researcher, the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness and the Journal of Urban Economics. Outlets such as Brookings and Politico have also covered this work.

I received my Ph.D. in Education with a concentration in Education Policy and Program Evaluation from Harvard University in 2022.

To learn more about my publications, please see my Research and CV. For more information on motivation behind the work I am interested in, please see my Theory of Action. Finally, for a peek into my life outside of academia, please see my Not Research. Thanks for coming!