Emileigh Harrison

Emileigh Harrison researches the economics of education, with a focus on the causes and consequences of inequality in education and the effectiveness of policies aimed at expanding access and improving student outcomes. She has studied the impacts of free community college, developmental education placement policies, postsecondary transfer pathways, and holistic student supports, using large-scale administrative data. She also applies artificial intelligence tools from the fields of computer vision and natural language processing to analyze the images and text of educational materials commonly used in public schools, religious private schools, and by homeschooling families. 

Her research has been published in both economics and computer science outlets, including the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Her dissertation was recognized with a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, and she has also been awarded fellowships from the Data Science Institute and the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago.