Meredith Phillips

Meredith Phillips is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Sociology and Chair of Undergraduate Affairs. Phillips studies the causes and consequences of educational inequality. She specializes in the causes of ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in educational success and how to reduce those disparities. Her current research projects include a random-assignment evaluation of the efficacy of two low-cost college access interventions; an ethnographic longitudinal study of adolescent culture, families, schools, and academic achievement; an analysis of classroom environment surveys; and a study of promising school-based practices for improving students’ achievement.

Phillips co-founded EdBoost, a charitable, educational non-profit whose mission is to reduce educational inequality by making high-quality supplemental educational services accessible to children from all family backgrounds. EdBoost develops and refines interventions and curriculum at its learning center, implements interventions in educational settings, and then tests promising interventions using rigorous evaluations. Phillips also co-founded the Los Angeles Education Research Institute (LAERI), a Los Angeles-based research-practice partnership that collaborates with L.A. Unified.

Phillips currently serves on the National Academy Committee on Developing Indicators of Educational Equity. She previously served on the National Academy Committee on the Evaluation Framework for Successful K-12 STEM Education. Phillips is a past recipient of a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship as well as the dissertation award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University and her A.B. from Brown University.