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I am an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Economics at The University of Alabama. My research lies at the intersection of international education policy and development economics. I study how education policies and interventions shape the decisions and practices of families, students, teachers, schools, and education systems in developing countries. I use field experiments, quasi-experimental designs, natural language processing, and machine learning to examine family educational investment, student learning and behavior, teacher quality, and school improvement. My goal is to generate rigorous, policy-relevant evidence that advances educational opportunity and reduces inequality in low- and middle-income settings.
During my doctoral studies, I was fortunate to be advised by Prof. Felipe Barrera-Osorio and Prof. Carolyn Heinrich, who have shaped my academic trajectory. Prior to my PhD, I taught middle school for three years in a low-income community as a Teach for China fellow in southwest China, near the Myanmar border. This experience profoundly shaped my commitment to addressing educational inequality and continues to motivate my research agenda. I hold a Bachelor of Economics from Sichuan University and an M.Ed. in Education Policy and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University.
I welcome opportunities for research collaboration and can be reached at xzhang215@ua.edu.
My philosophy of life has been shaped by lessons from the people and wisdom that matter deeply to me.
No one has ever become poor by giving.
Do the right things, and do things right.
一切有为法 如梦幻泡影 如露亦如电 应作如是观. All conditioned phenomena; Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows; Like dew and lightning. Thus should they be contemplated.
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