Ph.D. in Education: Alumni Profiles
Our alumni are trained in a multitude of approaches to studying learning, human development, and educational outcomes. This holistic approach makes our alumni attractive candidates for jobs in several industries – academia, nonprofit, and private business.
You can find our alumni working as professors at dozens of universities across the country, leading research at education think tanks and nonprofits, and heading up companies and schools they founded. Alumni of the School of Education’s doctoral program are currently employed across the globe, including more than a dozen states and China, Hong Kong, Kenya, and Korea.
Graduates of the Ph.D. in Education program have access to networking and professional development opportunities via the School of Education's Anteaters in Education Alumni Chapter. To view a full list of our Ph.D. in Education alumni, please visit this directory.
You can find our alumni working as professors at dozens of universities across the country, leading research at education think tanks and nonprofits, and heading up companies and schools they founded. Alumni of the School of Education’s doctoral program are currently employed across the globe, including more than a dozen states and China, Hong Kong, Kenya, and Korea.
Graduates of the Ph.D. in Education program have access to networking and professional development opportunities via the School of Education's Anteaters in Education Alumni Chapter. To view a full list of our Ph.D. in Education alumni, please visit this directory.
Ph.D. in Education Alumni Highlights
Check back as student highlights are updated regularly!
Check back as student highlights are updated regularly!
Tarana Khan, Ph.D. ’19
PBS SoCal Education
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For Dr. Tarana Khan, the opportunity to work with renowned scholar and Distinguished Professor Jacquelynne Eccles was the driving force for choosing the UCI School of Education. Now, Khan is using skills she learned as a doctoral student in her position with PBS SoCal’s Family Math Initiative. “Studying at the School of Education taught me how
to be a conscientious researcher, how to present research in a way that is accessible and impactful, and how to look at data with a careful scrutinization.” Khan ventured to UCI from her home in Austin, Texas, expecting to find a culture of collaboration and support and was not disappointed. For her dissertation, Khan explored undergraduate beliefs about the malleability of their intelligence, their beliefs about the causes of their successes and failures, and how these beliefs impact motivation and achievement in school. Her findings – that an ability-focused component may be a crucial part of student motivation – have the potential to inform ongoing large-scale mindset interventions. |
Joyce Lin, Ph.D. ’16
Assistant Professor, California State University, Fullerton
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Dr. Joyce Lin chose the UCI School of Education in large part because of Southern California’s ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. “In addition to studying with a multidisciplinary team of faculty, I wanted to conduct research with and serve the communities that I grew up in.” Lin’s doctoral research focused on how distal parenting contexts are related to the home environments of young children; her mixed-method dissertation specifically addressed how cultural values were related to experiences of physical punishment. In reflection, she is appreciative that her advisor, Professor Stephanie Reich, was open-minded about career trajectories and recognizes that the School of Education prepared her well for her post-doctoral research in Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. Opportunities to work with and mentor undergraduates in teaching and research at UCI helped her understand how much she loved working with undergraduates and solidified her desire for a tenure-track position at a teaching university.
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Nestor Tulagan, Ph.D. ’20
National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
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Dr. Nestor Tulagan is a “Double Anteater” – he earned a B.A. in Psychology & Social Behavior at UCI and his Ph.D. in Education. For his dissertation, Tulagan worked with Distinguished Professor Jacquelynne Eccles, integrating two of her theories – Expectancy-Value and Stage-Environment Fit – to “explore the possibility that there may be an ‘optimal modulation’, between parents’ control and involvement in their kids’ development and adolescents’ growing desire to be in the driver’s seat of their lives.” In September 2020, Nestor joined the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship program. He and Professor Sandra Simpkins are studying new research they developed in late 2019, focused on leveraging partnerships between math-based organized afterschool activities and Latinx families to enhance middle-schoolers’ math motivational beliefs and achievement.
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Jessica Tunney, Ph.D. ’16
Executive Director and Founding Principal of TLC Public Charter School
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Dr. Elizabeth Tunney designed the TLC Public Charter School as a site for excellence in teaching, innovation, research, and professional learning for inclusive education. The school features classrooms that bring together gifted students, culturally and linguistically diverse students, students who develop typically, and students with special needs for lessons and learning activities that have been thoughtfully differentiated and universally designed by teams of co-teachers to be accessible to all. “We emphasize care and friendship, and an arts-based, enriched education for students who have been historically marginalized due to race, income, language, or ability.” For her doctoral studies, Tunney chose UCI specifically to expand her understanding of teaching and learning in schools and focused on teacher learning and professional development for school improvement. “I am forever grateful for the support and flexibility I received for identifying and developing my own path as a doctoral student.
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Tyler Watts, Ph.D. ’17
Assistant Professor of Developmental Psychology,
Teachers College, Columbia University Vertical Divider
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Dr. Tyler Watts joined the UCI School of Education unsure of what job might follow. After specializing in Educational Policy and Social Context at UCI and working as a research assistant professor and postdoctoral scholar at New York University, he now finds himself working as an assistant professor of Development Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Most of his research at UCI focused on early cognitive development and interventions designed to raise children’s mathematics skills. His dissertation, under Distinguished Professor Greg Duncan, broadly focused on whether interventions targeting academic skills might have longer-term effects. “There is no way I would be where I am today without the UCI School of Education – Greg was the best advisor I could ask for, and the larger community of researchers at the School of Education really shaped my thinking,” Watts said. “At the UCI School of Education, I learned how to be an academic – how to generate research questions, how to work with students, how to analyze data, and how to write research papers. I am extremely grateful to everyone in that school.”
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