Maggie’s research interests began while working in school operations at a charter school in Denver, Colorado. This experience reshaped her understanding of school inequality, making clear that how policies and systems are designed has meaningful implications for equity. Working with middle schoolers also deepened her appreciation of schools as critical organizational sites of socialization— with important consequences not only for learning opportunities, but also for the development of children’s social capital and social networks.

Her current projects explore (1) how charter and district schools structure racial segregation across time and place and (2) how place-based initiatives, such as the Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods Program, support child development in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Maggie uses mixed-methods approaches, guided by a commitment to aligning research questions with the appropriate methodological tools. Her master’s thesis draws primarily on panel data and quantitative analysis, and she also has experience conducting interviews, coding policy documents, and working with ArcGIS. As a visual learner and communicator, she is especially excited to refine her data visualization skills to better communicate complex social patterns in clear and accessible ways.

She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and her work has been published in City & Community and Canadian Ethnic Studies.