Matt is an advanced doctoral candidate in the Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard. As a quantitative social scientist, he studies the economics of education, education policy, and applied quantitative methods. His research focuses on developing and evaluating strategies to improve the quality of education in urban public schools. He examines three broad levers for change: human capital strategies in districts, individual teacher practices, and the school context in which teachers work. He is currently conducting research on late teacher hiring, individualized teacher coaching, and the validity and reliability of teacher observation systems. His work has appeared in publications such as Teachers College Record, Educational Researcher, Equity & Excellence in Education, and Phi Delta Kappan.
Matt has served as a teaching fellow in a variety of classes at Harvard, including courses on causal inference, applied data analysis, and teacher quality. He is the recipient of the 2012 Spencer/National Academy of Education Dissertation Fellowship.
Before coming to Harvard, he taught middle school English in Oakland and integrated humanities at Berkeley High School, where he co-founded and led Life Academy, a small 9th grade academic program for students at risk of dropping out. His three and a half years as a public school teacher serve to inform his research with the realities of classroom practice. Matt holds a B.A. in International Relations and a M.A. in International Comparative Education from Stanford University.