Passionate about research that matters for education and employment
“We work closely with policymakers and institutional leaders to answer pressing questions about how to strengthen education and employment opportunities for individuals facing the greatest obstacles.”
— DR. PETER RILEY BAHR
Our Team
VICE PRESIDENT AND RESEARCH DIRECTOR, STRADA INSTITUTE FOR THE FUTURE OF WORK
Peter Riley Bahr, Ph.D.
Dr. Bahr is a nationally recognized scholar and expert on community colleges, student outcomes, and economic mobility. His research focuses on the role of public postsecondary institutions—especially community and technical colleges—in creating and advancing educational and economic opportunities for socioeconomically disadvantaged students, adult-age students beginning in or returning to college, individuals returning to the community after incarceration, and other disadvantaged groups. Working closely with policymakers and institutional leaders, his research directly informs policy and practice aimed at reducing inequality, achieving educational attainment goals, improving workforce opportunities, and strengthening state economic vitality and growth.
MANAGING RESEARCHER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Jennifer May-Trifiletti, Ph.D.
Dr. May-Trifiletti is the Managing Researcher for Dr. Peter Riley Bahr’s research team in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. Presently, Jennifer leads projects on stackable credential pathways, short-term course-taking (skills-building), and transitions between adult education and postsecondary degree programs. She also manages the team’s projects examining the educational and labor market outcomes of students in postsecondary career and technical education, noncredit education, and the experiences of adult learners in community colleges. Jennifer holds a PhD in higher education from the Louise McBee Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia, where her dissertation examined mission change in community colleges and its implications. She also holds an MA in higher education from Boston College, a BA in secondary education and history from Boston College, and a graduate certificate in institutional research from Pennsylvania State University.
DOCTORAL STUDENT RESEARCH ASSISTANT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Yiran Chen
Yiran Chen is a doctoral candidate at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. His research focuses on the dynamics of students selecting colleges, strategies for promoting student success in higher education, and innovative methods for gauging postsecondary outcomes. Much of his research addresses the challenges encountered by marginalized students in community colleges. Before pursuing academia, Yiran worked for four years as a project manager in a marketing agency. In the realm of higher education administration, he has served as an institutional researcher across diverse educational settings. He has contributed at two-year colleges like Manchester Community College, four-year institutions such as Boston College, and now at the graduate level with the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan. Yiran holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Ford School at the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Shanghai University.
RESEARCH PROJECT LEAD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Lori Durako Fisher, Ph.D.
Dr. Lori Durako Fisher (she/her) serves as a Research Project Lead within Dr. Peter Bahr’s research team. Her current research portfolio centers on access and completion, in particular for minoritized students, related to adult education and multiple measures of assessment and placement for students within community and technical colleges. She holds her doctorate in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development from North Carolina State University, where her dissertation explored the role of dispositional hope and race in college student demonstrative activist engagement using QuantCrit methodologies. She earned her M.A. in Leadership in Student Affairs from the University of Saint Thomas, and a B.A. in Sociology from Purdue University. Prior to becoming a researcher, Lori worked directly with students for almost a decade in residence life, service learning, and leadership development.
POLICY ANALYTICS LEAD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Molly Maguire
Molly Maguire has 15 years of experience working in public policy at the state level in New York and California and in Washington, D.C., where she represented higher education institutions. In New York, Molly worked in a government affairs role for the Bloomberg Administration and as a Special Assistant in the Governor’s Office, where she designed the framework for the state’s paid family leave policy. She worked in the President’s Office at Hunter College, the Newsom Administration in California, and most recently was the State and Federal Policy Director with the Campaign for College Opportunity in Sacramento, CA, where her portfolio included higher education finance and the state budget, state and national transfer reform, and higher education coordination.
Molly earned an MPP at the University of Michigan Ford School and her B.A. at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where she studied Modern History.
RESEARCH FELOW, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Rooney Columbus
Rooney Columbus is a Ph.D. candidate and Graduate Student Research Assistant at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education. His research uses quasi-experimental methods and large administrative datasets to study issues of policy and practice where postsecondary education and employment commonly intersect. More specifically, he studies topics such as community colleges and other providers of sub-baccalaureate career and technical education (CTE) as well as higher education finance. Prior to his doctoral studies, he was the program manager for Domestic Policy Studies and a research associate in the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He has a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law from the University of Richmond. Rooney is concurrently a Postsecondary CTE Research Fellow with North Carolina State University and the ECMC Foundation.
DOCTORAL STUDENT RESEARCH ASSISTANT, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Cody L. Christensen
Cody L. Christensen is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Vanderbilt University. His research interests include higher education finance, college access and completion, and federal financial aid programs. His research has appeared in Brookings, AEI, EducationNext, and other outlets. Prior to Vanderbilt, Cody worked as a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Higher Education Reform. In this role, he researched federal financial aid programs, student loan repayment, intergenerational mobility of college students, and institutional responses to COVID-19. Cody received his bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of Kansas and is a native of Topeka, Kansas.
DATA SCIENCE LEAD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ying Sun
Ying Sun is a data science specialist with a passion for applying computational methods to understand educational challenges. She holds a bachelor's degree in statistics and computer science from Michigan State University.
Email — LinkedIn
DOCTORAL STUDENT RESEARCH ASSISTANT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Chenjun Yu
Chenjun Yu is a Ph.D. student and graduate student research assistant at the Center for Studies of Higher and Postsecondary Education, University of Michigan. Her research interests include student employment, career and technical education, workforce development, international education evaluation, and inequalities in labor market outcomes. Her work has appeared in national conferences and national student aid and adult education policy reports. Prior to UMich, she worked professionally in academic advising projects at Tsinghua University and technical education programmes at UNESCO education sector. Chenjun holds an MA in Education Economics and Management and a BA in Japanese Language and Literature from Tsinghua University, Beijing, and grew up in a small town in southeastern China.
Email — LinkedIn
INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH ANALYST, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
Yining Li
Yining Li is a master’s student at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. Her research interests include labor market outcomes and STEM education. Yining received her B.S. in Mathematical Sciences and Economics from the University of Michigan. She also works as a Research Associate Intern at the American Institutes for Research.
Email — LinkedIn
RESEARCH PROJECT LEAD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Quintin Kreth
Quintin Kreth (he/him) serves as a Research Project Lead within Dr. Peter Bahr’s research team. His research portfolio currently includes studies of stackable education credentials and labor market outcomes for postsecondary students. He has extensive experience in mixed-methods research, survey research, and the study of innovative degree programs.
Quintin is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy, where his dissertation explores faculty research productivity in striving research universities. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics and Planning, Public Policy, and Management (PPPM) from the University of Oregon. When not conducting research, Quintin enjoys spending time outdoors, visiting farmers’ markets, and trying new restaurants.
RESEARCH PROJECT LEAD, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Samantha Hallman, Ph.D.
Sam Hallman is a Research Project Lead with Dr. Bahr's research team. Her current focus is on exploring the educational and occupational outcomes associated with Postsecondary Education in Prisons (PEIP) programs.
She received a joint Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology in 2015 from the University of Michigan, where her dissertation focused on the cognitive and environmental predictors of homework completion. She holds master's degrees in Higher Education Administration, Social Work and Psychology, and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology with Honors from the University of Michigan in 2006. She has nearly two decades of experience in research and evaluation roles, and has over 15 years of experience teaching in higher education. In addition to her Research Project Lead role, she is currently an adjunct instructor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn where she teaches quantitative research methods and statistics.
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Preston Pierce
Coming soon
Email — LinkedIn