Erin Baumgartner
Director of Houston Education Research Consortium
SURF Mentoring
Potential projects/topics: There will be multiple opportunities for undergrad students with HERC this summer. We are engaging on a large study of how we can increase the ways school districts use research in decision making, and we will be doing interviews, surveys, and document analysis -- so many different types of opportunities for research exposure.
Also, we have some specific projects in progress around: pre-k-12 wraparound supports (non-academic supports); teacher workforce; college and career readiness; and more.
Last year, HERC had 2 great SURF students supporting our work.
Potential skills gained: basic data prep/cleaning skills, qualitative analysis, document analysis, literature review, presentation skills
Required qualifications: Depending on goals for the summer, having some basic research method or statistics course could be helpful, but not required. Majors who may be most interested: sociology, social policy analysis, psychology, economics, policy.
Direct mentor: Faculty/P.I., Other Research Associate
Student Project Titles List
Enrollment and Dropout in K-12 Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Research Areas
Dr. Erin Baumgartner is the director of the Houston Education Research Consortium at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, which bridges research, policy, and practice to solve critical problems facing the nation’s fifth-largest metropolitan area.
In partnership with Houston-area school districts serving over 700,000 students, teams under her direction are pursuing a research agenda focused on equity, opportunity, and access for students. Topics include early childhood education, social and emotional learning, postsecondary readiness, school choice, teaching and staffing.
Baumgartner earned her doctorate from Pennsylvania State University’s dual-degree program in sociology and demography. She holds a master’s in sociology from the University of Chicago and a master’s in education with an emphasis in measurement, evaluation, statistics and assessment from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She earned a bachelor’s in sociology and marketing from the University of Notre Dame.
She has been an instructor at Penn State and Rice University and serves on the Early Childhood Research Quarterly editorial board. Her primary research and teaching interests are in sociology of education and family, social stratification and demography, the educational role of the family, research methods, and quantitative methods.
