Katharine Strunk

Katharine O. Strunk is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A nationally recognized scholar, her work focuses on partner-driven, multimethod research that addresses pressing policy challenges facing educators and education systems. Her research is grounded in close collaboration with district and state education leaders, including partnerships with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the California and Michigan Departments of Education. She served as the sole researcher on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Student Recovery Advisory Council, which helped shape statewide COVID-19 recovery efforts in education, and she has advised on numerous major local and state education reforms.

Dr. Strunk served as president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy from 2021 to 2022 and is a member of the Executive Leadership Board of the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH). From 2017 to 2023, she was director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) at Michigan State University, where she led research partnerships with the Michigan Department of Education and local school districts to produce policy-relevant, practitioner-informed scholarship.

Prior to joining Penn GSE, Dr. Strunk was the Clifford E. Erickson Distinguished Chair in Education and a professor of education policy, with a courtesy appointment in economics, at Michigan State University. From 2009 to 2017, she served on the faculty of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education and the Sol Price School of Public Policy. She began her academic career at the University of California, Davis School of Education, where she served on the faculty from 2007 to 2009.