معرفی
Dr. Jennifer L. Steele is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at American University (AU) and an affiliate faculty member in AU's Department of Public Administration and Policy. Her research emphasizes quantitative methods that support causal inference, focusing on education policy and the economics of education at P-12 and postsecondary levels.
Dr. Steele earned her Ed.D. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University, an M.A. in Education from Stanford University, an M.A. in English from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Psychology and Honors English from Georgetown University. She also spent a junior year abroad at the University of Sussex studying Psychology and English.
Her research program investigates school-to-work transitions, the role of information access in students' college-and-career readiness, and effects of Artificial Intelligence on the labor force. Methodologically, she specializes in econometric approaches to obtain causal estimates of education policies. Current projects examine how information disparities affect secondary to postsecondary transitions, including the effects of STEM-intensive college enrollment on course exposure and majors, work-based learning opportunities on high school students' labor market understanding, and vocational education pathways on economic mobility.
Dr. Steele's publication record demonstrates consistent productivity across education policy domains, with recent work spanning dual-language immersion programs, school leadership pipelines, AI in education, and international comparisons of educational opportunity. Her research shows a clear trajectory toward increasingly sophisticated causal methods applied to pressing equity issues in education.
Her work has been funded by significant organizations including the U.S. Department of Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the American Council on Education. Publications appear in top journals such as the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, American Educational Research Journal, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Before joining AU in 2014, Dr. Steele worked as a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation for six years. Her professional background also includes teaching at elementary, secondary, and community college levels, and managing teacher recruitment and training in the test preparation industry. This diverse experience informs her research on teacher supply and demand disparities and students' opportunity gaps.
