Tre Wells is a PhD student in the Human Development and Social Policy Program. Before coming to Northwestern University, Wells managed a data and evaluation team for a non-profit organization in New York City that provided mental health services to public schools across the city.  Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, he earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Morehouse College and a master’s in economics from the University of Virginia. Wells’ current research interests lie at the intersection of housing and education.  In his free time, he enjoys playing pick-up basketball, listening to music, and binge-watching the latest Netflix series.  Wells is very open to talking about his experience with the graduate school application process, his first year at Northwestern, and his research interests.

Andrew Stein is a first-year PhD student in SESP, and he is looking forward to participating in Connections. Currently, his research draws on political science, sociology, and psychology to understand state- and district-level policymaking and policy implementation about school accountability. Specifically, he is interested in the development of metrics of school quality and student success that shift attention beyond academic assessment and toward safe and warm school climates in high schools. Before joining HDSP, Stein served as a dean of students for 11th and 12th-grade students and as an English and history teacher at a high school in Brooklyn, New York. His favorite classes to teach were about U.S. LGBTQ+ history, the history of the US South, and the Caribbean. In his free time, Stein likes to play tennis, baseball, and dodgeball. He also loves to read fiction books and watch shows about drag queens and baking.

Claudia grew up in Dresden, East Germany and earned her PhD from the University of Jena. She an Associate Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and (by courtesy) Psychology, a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Innovations in Developmental Science, a faculty affiliate at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, and a faculty member at Northwestern University’s Interdepartmental Neuroscience program. With the Life-Span Development Lab, she studies pathways towards happy and healthy development across the life span with a focus on emotions in relationships. She enjoys spending time with her husband, two littlechildren, family and friends around the world, and with herself. | Claudia’s Faculty Website.

Quinn Mulroy is a political scientist whose work engages central questions in the subfields of social policy, law and society, inequality, political institutions, and American political development.  She is also a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. At its core, her research agenda centers substantively on the study of inequality (racial, economic, and gender) through the lens of the policies, state-society relationships, and political institutions that can reinforce and/or challenge its persistence in American politics. Using a mixed set of methodological approaches – including historical analyses of archival materials, ethnographic observation, interviewing, survey experiments, and statistical examinations of quantitative data – she is engaged in several ongoing projects exploring the political development of social policy addressing inequality and the often informal, hidden, and unintended modes of enforcement crafted by those who implement it. A Chicago native, Mulroy received her bachelor’s from the University of California-Berkeley and a doctorate in political science from Columbia University. Her work has been recognized by visiting fellowships and grants from the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, the American Bar Foundation, Princeton University’s Law and Public Affairs Program, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University, and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy.