Mimi Engel is an associate professor in the Research and Evaluation Methodology (REM) program in the CU Boulder School of Education. Through her research Dr. Engel aims to contribute to our understanding of how policies and programs affect children’s developmental outcomes and opportunities to learn. Her interest in studying how schools and other contexts influence students is informed by her training in human development and social policy and social work. Spanning several areas including teacher labor markets (focus on teacher hiring) and early skill formation (focus on mathematics teaching and learning for young children), and contextual influences on children, the central aim of her research is to provide new information about policies, programs, and administrative factors that have the potential to improve students’ school-related outcomes, particularly among students from traditionally under-served populations.
Dr. Engel uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct program evaluations and analyses investigating issues in education policy. She has conducted a number of studies in the Chicago Public Schools and worked at the Consortium on Chicago School Research. She also utilizes large-scale national databases in her research. Her publications include peer-reviewed articles in Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the Journal of Education Finance and Policy, Developmental Psychology, and Educational Administration Quarterly, among others.