Maria Baez Cruz is a PhD candidate in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment at Boston College Lynch School of Education. Her research interests include policy evaluation and survey methods, in particular, the assessment of hard-to-measure constructs and survey feedback for institutional change. Maria has presented her work in the American Educational Research Association Annual Meetings, and the New England Education Research Organization Annual Conference. Prior to embarking on her doctoral degree, Maria was a Research Manager at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Latin America in Santiago de Chile. In this role, she managed the Compass and Quipu Commissions, partnerships with the Chilean Ministry of Planning and the Peruvian Ministry of Development, respectively, to generate evidence through randomized controlled trials to answer pressing public policy issues. Maria has also worked as a research assistant at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard, consulted for the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Education, and the United Nations Development Program in Santo Domingo. Her teaching roles include Introductory Statistics (ERME7468) at the Lynch School of Education and Microeconomics (A-205) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Maria holds a Master’s in International Education Policy from Harvard University, a Master’s in Public Policy in Development from Paris School of Economics and L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and a bachelor’s in Economics from Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.
