I am a doctoral student in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. I study educational policies designed to promote the cognitive and academic skills of children from undeserved communities. I became interested in studying educational policy through my belief that education can be used as a tool to better the lives of children from low-income families. Before coming to UCI, I majored in Psychology and Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
My current research projects focus on the development of early mathematical skills. In particular, my work has investigated why children from low-income backgrounds begin school struggling in math, and whether early interventions in mathematics can be expected to make long-run impacts on their educational trajectories. My work has been published in scholarly journals like Child Development, Educational Researcher and The Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.
I will finish my Ph.D. in the spring of 2017, and I am currently seeking an academic or research-focused position for my postdoctoral career.
Tyler W. Watts 