Students

I mentor and collaborate with graduate and undergraduate students on a range of grant-funded, evaluations and scholarly projects and publications.

Haylea Hubacz (LinkedIn)

Ph.D. Candidate/Graduate Research Assistant 

Haylea Hubacz is a Ph.D. candidate in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment at Boston College. Previously, Haylea studied Statistics and Sociology at Mount Holyoke College where her interest in education research developed. Haylea is passionate about exploring the education system and learning about school and district leadership within Massachusetts, where she’s lived her entire life. 

Interests: social network analysis, school leadership, mixed methods evaluation 

Clara Shim (LinkedIn)

Ph.D. Candidate/Graduate Research Assistant 

Clara Shim is a doctoral candidate in the Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment Department at Boston College. She received her Ed.M. degree in International Education Policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research centers around evaluating education policies and systems through the application of multilevel models to observe students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.

Interests: multilevel modeling, whole person education, systems change

Kiruba Murugaiah (LinkedIn)

Ph.D. Candidate/Diversity Fellow

Kiruba Murugaiah is a Ph.D. candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College. Previously, Kiruba worked as an Education Technical Advisor for the International Rescue Committee overseeing education programs in fragile contexts serving large numbers of forcibly displaced people. Prior to that, she was a tenured math faculty at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. Kiruba earned an M.B.A. from the University of Geneva, an M.A. in Mathematics Education from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Boston University. 

Interests: education in conflict-affected communities, mathematics teacher education, theories of change

Ruoying Li (LinkedIn)

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Ruoying Li is an undergraduate majoring in Applied Psychology and Economics at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Ruoying has been working with Dr. Emily Gates as a research assistant since 2022. Ruoying has worked on Dr. Gates’s book project on system changes and has assisted with various qualitative data collections, such as co-facilitating focus groups for educational evaluations. Ruoying is interested in special education and counseling and intends to pursue a graduate degree in these fields.

Maya Komakhidze (LinkedIn)

Ph.D. student/Graduate Research assistant

Maya is a Ph.D. student in educational measurement and evaluation at Boston College. Before this she worked on survey research and program and policy evaluation in her home country, Georgia.

Interests: Systems thinking, educational measurement, cognition and learning.

Eric Williamson (LinkedIn)

Ph.D. Candidate

Eric is a Ph.D. candidate in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment at Boston College. Before starting at BC, Eric taught Algebra I and Algebra II at a charter high school in Boston. Currently, Eric works as Director of Data and Evaluation at Reading Assist, a regional education nonprofit operating in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Eric’s dissertation will focus on big data educational outcomes of evaluation higher education learners.

Interests: big data and data science in evaluation, nonprofit evaluation, mixed methods evaluation