Alexander Adames

Taylor Odle

MDRC is pleased to be hosting two education research fellows, Alexander Adames and Taylor Odle, who are both doctoral students at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adames and Odle come to MDRC by way of the federal Institute of Education Sciences’ Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-Based Research in Education. Fellows receive hands-on research experience through a one-semester “apprenticeship” with a research firm or government organization, with an emphasis on learning rigorous methods for conducting actionable, equitable field-based research to inform policy and practice.

Adames studies social stratification and social mobility across racial and ethnic groups. His research is motivated by questions regarding the effect of childhood socioeconomic disadvantage on such outcomes as occupational attainment, educational attainment, income attainment, and physical and mental health outcomes. More precisely, he is concerned with the extent to which education is an equalizer of opportunity for people from different early childhood conditions. He is working with MDRC’s K-12 Education and Postsecondary Education policy areas.

Odle’s work leverages experimental and quasi-experimental methods to study how public policy and education practice can strengthen the pipeline to and through various forms of postsecondary education for traditionally underserved groups. He is working with MDRC’s Postsecondary Education policy area.