Michal Kurlaender

Michal Kurlaender serves as acting dean of the UC Davis School of Education. A nationally recognized scholar of education policy, she has been a member of the UC Davis faculty since 2004 and was appointed Chancellor’s Leadership Professor in 2022.

Kurlaender’s research examines K-12 and postsecondary alignment, and access to and success in higher education. She examines alternative educational pathways to and through college and careers. Kurlaender works closely with administrative data from all of California’s public education agencies—the California Department of Education, Cradle to Career, the California Student Aid Commission, and the state’s three public higher education agencies: the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community College systems.

Kurlaender has held numerous leadership roles at UC Davis and beyond. She previously served as department chair and as interim associate dean at the School of Education, and as a special advisor to the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of California Office of the President. Kurlaender is a Gubernatorial Appointee to the Education Commission of the States and is a recent past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy. She serves as a faculty director of Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and is founding faculty director of Wheelhouse: The Center for Community College Leadership and Research. Kurlaender was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2020 and is a senior fellow at the Spencer Foundation.

Kurlaender received her bachelor’s degree in political science and art from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in education from Harvard University.