Catherine Mata

Catherine Mata is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University. She is a Policy Fellow for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), an Affiliate of the Stanford Pathways Network, and a Research Affiliate at the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center (MLDS).

Dr. Mata specializes in applied microeconomics, with a focus on the economics of education, labor markets, and economic development. Her research interests focus on evaluating policies that reduce barriers faced by historically marginalized populations throughout their PK-12 education, during their transition to college, throughout their college experience, and as they enter the labor market. Catherine’s work involves conducting experimental and quasi-experimental studies aimed at understanding the causal effects of policies designed to improve the educational and labor market outcomes of historically underserved populations.

Recently, Catherine has been conducting a study on the impact of a school suspension ban in Maryland to assess whether a state-mandated ban on suspensions in early primary education influences school disciplinary practices. To examine the broader implications of school discipline, K-8 data from the Maryland State Department of Education has been linked with incident-level records from the Department of Juvenile Services. This linkage allows for the tracking of students' academic and disciplinary histories leading up to their first interactions with the juvenile justice system. The analysis tests whether out-of-school suspensions at various grade levels affect the likelihood of early involvement with the juvenile justice system, focusing on racial and gender disparities. The results shed light on the connection between exclusionary discipline practices and juvenile arrests, contributing to a deeper understanding of the school-to-prison pipeline and the role of school discipline in shaping student outcomes.

Dr. Mata is also collaborating with Georgia State University through a research-practice partnership to understand the effectiveness of incorporating AI-enabled chatbot communication into systems of outreach and support for the university’s undergraduate population. Phase 1 findings, which assess the impact of a text-based AI chatbot intervention on academic performance in introductory Economics and Government courses, have already been published as an EdWorkingPaper.

Building on this work, Dr. Mata and a team of researchers from Brown University, Harvard, Stanford, and Brookings Institution have expanded the project in partnership with Morgan State University, University of Central Florida, and Georgia State University. This expanded phase focuses on exploring how integrating personalized, course-specific chatbot communication into gateway postsecondary math and English courses affects students’ academic performance, sense of belonging, retention, and completion rates at scale.

Dr. Mata’s research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Ascendium Education Group, Kresge Foundation, College Futures Foundation, and the Inter-American Development Bank.