Dr. Maithreyi Gopalan

Maithreyi Gopalan is Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at Penn State. She is also a Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member. She earned a doctorate from the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington. She engages in interdisciplinary, policy-relevant, social science research exploring the causes and consequences of racial and socioeconomic disparities in broadly defined student outcomes using experimental and quasi-experimental research methods. She has applied psychological insights to analyze social and educational policy issues affecting child and adolescent development. More recently, in a new line of research, she is exploring the impact of child and adolescent health on subsequent human development. Specifically, she is examining the impact of health policies on children’s development and the short- and long-term consequences of adverse adolescent mental health on subsequent educational attainment and life course trajectories. She hopes to better engage with a healthy disparities lens to this line of research.