Education Policy and Leadership Graduate Student Bios

Ghadir is Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy and Leadership at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on educational equality, with particular attention to policy, shared governance, and practice improvement as tools for enhancing student outcomes and supporting informed, evidence-based decision-making in educational settings.

Her research appears at major academic venues, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP). Ghadir is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship and the Teach for Lebanon Fellowship. These experiences, alongside her professional and research background, continue to inform her commitment to advancing responsive and inclusive educational systems.

Outside of research and teaching, Ghadir enjoys cooking, music, and reading.

Marynes Castillo-Espinoza holds a dual-title Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership and in Comparative and International Education, with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is a second-year Ph.D. student in Education at Penn State University and serves as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Education Policy Studies. In this role, she supports faculty research and contributes to teaching initiatives in educational leadership and policy analysis.

Her scholarly interests include the intersections of immigration law and education policy in the U.S., Latinx and women-of-color feminist epistemologies, and the lived realities of international students in academia. She collaborates on projects that examine the impact of policy decisions on diverse learning communities.

Prior to graduate studies, Marynes earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Penn State Dickinson Law and a Master of Education Administration from Universidad de Piura in Peru. She brings a background in law, policy, communication, and advocacy, with experience supporting minoritized student communities across the U.S. and Latin America.

Francisca Figueroa-Vidal is a third-year Ph.D. student in Higher Education and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Minor at Penn State University. Francisca is an international student from Chile. She serves as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Education Policy Studies. In this role, she assists the department with developing webinars and workshops.

Her research focuses on the gender gap in STEM fields, specifically in the Chilean academia. Her scholarly interests include feminist, organizational, and intersectional theories. She actively collaborates on research projects focused on faculty trajectories and the barriers women of color face to advancing to higher levels in academia.

Prior to graduate studies, Figueroa-Vidal earned her Sociology degree in Universidad de La Frontera in Chile. Outside of academic work, she enjoys spending time with her dog, friends, and relatives, and participates in dance activities.

Holly Raquel Graham (she/her) is a PhD student in Education Policy and Leadership at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research is situated at the intersection of Black Studies and Higher Education, with a particular focus on how higher education as a field of study constructs “the student.” Her work interrogates the ontological assumptions underlying this figure and examines how the taken-for-granted nature of “the student” reproduces antiblack violence against Black people within higher education institutions. Holly draws transdisciplinarily on a wide range of Black scholars to inform her scholarship.

At Penn State, Holly serves as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Education Policy Studies, where she works closely with the Black Study in Education Lab. In this role, she leads the lab’s Deep Study Roundtables, facilitating thematic discussions within the Black Studies tradition alongside a Scholar-in-Residence. She also serves as a graduate mentor for the College of Education’s D.C. Social Justice Fellowship, supporting undergraduate students in developing social justice curricula for high school students in D.C. Public Schools. Beyond Penn State, Holly is a reviewer for the New Professional and Graduate Student Review Board of the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education (JWG).

Holly is from the South Side of Chicago, a place she holds close to her heart. She earned a B.S. in Health Science from the University of Missouri and an M.S.Ed. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Outside of academia, she enjoys concerts/music festivals, traveling, and all things reality television.

Xin Guo, a PhD candidate in Higher Education at Penn State University, specializes in the longitudinal analysis of student success within STEM pathways. Her research utilizes advanced quantitative methodologies, including Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM), Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis and Difference-in-Differences (DiD), to evaluate the long-term impact of institutional interventions.

Daisy Rodriguez (ella/she/her) is a fifth-year Ph.D. Candidate in Higher Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She holds a master's degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Miami University (Ohio) and dual bachelor's degrees in Public Administration and Political Science with an option in Legal Studies from California State University, Chico.

Daisy's research is shaped by her lived experiences as a Latina, the daughter of immigrants, and a first-generation college student. Grounded in Critical Race Theory and Chicana feminism, her scholarship centers the voices and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and more racially minoritized People of Color, with particular attention to Women of Color faculty.

Her dissertation employs a Critical Race Feminista Methodological approach to examine how educational gag order laws in Florida and Texas shape institutional compliance at public four-year universities. Her work explores how these laws effect academic freedom, critical pedagogy, and the creation of affirming intellectual spaces.

Dajung Sohn is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Theory and Policy with a dual-title in Comparative and International Education at The Pennsylvania State University. She holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from South Korea and has training in quantitative research methods and large-scale international datasets.

Her research examines how education policies and school environments shape students’ academic and non-academic outcomes, including social-emotional competencies and civic engagement. She uses advanced quantitative methods such as hierarchical linear modeling and difference-in-differences designs.

Outside of research, Dajung enjoys spending time with her dog, cooking and playing tennis.

Hillori is a first-year Ph.D. student pursuing a Education Policy degree with Comparative International Education as a dual title. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from West Virginia University and a Master of Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland. Following a decade of preservation work in the public and private sectors, Hillori turned her attention toward education pursuing a Master of Education from George Washington University and teaching high school in rural northeastern Pennsylvania.

Her research focuses on the juxtaposition of K-12 rural education and rural workforces. She examines the influence of place and identity on high school graduates’ employment choices in the rural economy context.

Outside of research, Hillori enjoys community theater, gardening, and kayaking the Susquehanna River.