Cathy Balfe Doctoral Researcher

Cathy is a Doctoral Researcher at the Center for the Transformation of Schools (CTS) and is pursuing a JD at UCLA School of Law. Prior to starting law school, she worked as a Research Analyst at CTS, working primarily on the California Educator Diversity Project. Cathy is passionate about generating accessible and useful research that focuses on addressing systemic barriers to equity in education. Before joining CTS, Cathy worked at Tulane University’s Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, where she conducted quantitative and qualitative research seeking to understand how education policy changes impact historically marginalized students both in New Orleans and nationally. Her work has covered a variety of topics, including identifying barriers to racial equity in the teaching profession, early childhood application patterns, schools’ responses to the COVID-19 school closures, and the equity implications of admissions policy changes in the New Orleans public school system. Cathy holds a BA in Economics from Tulane University.