Monica Bhatt
Senior Research Director
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Expertise
Monica P. Bhatt is the Senior Research Director for the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab. In this role, Dr. Bhatt serves as the principal investigator on a number of applied research studies, including those focused on high-dosage tutoring; alleviating mental health for young women; and READI Chicago, an initiative to reduce gun violence involvement among those at highest risk. Her current work focuses on leading the Personalized Learning Initiative, a multi-site randomized controlled trial of over 16,000 students designed to understand how we can scale the benefits of high-dosage tutoring to reach more students in an equitable manner. Her work has been published in high impact journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and Science and has been cited in media outlets such as the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the Chicago Tribune.
Prior to coming to the Crime Lab and Education Lab, she worked as a researcher at the American Institutes for Research where she led projects related to college access and retention, teacher quality, school finance, and school accountability policy. She is a former Fulbright Scholar and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Education Policy and an M.P.P. and B.A. in Public Policy from Vanderbilt University.
Realizing the Promise of High Dosage Tutoring at Scale: Preliminary Evidence for the Field
This technical report outlines preliminary results from the Personalized Learning Initiative showing that high dosage tutoring can be scaled and can work–even when delivered in the aftermath of the pandemic and in diverse academic settings.
Randomized evaluation of a school-based, trauma-informed group intervention for young women in Chicago
Science Advances journal publication.
Working on Womanhood- Research Brief
Research brief for the Working on Womanhood project.
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents
Read our academic paper on the early Saga studies published in the American Economic Review.
Personalized Learning Initiative
The Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI) is a moonshot to overcome pandemic learning loss and aims to bring high-dosage tutoring to students nationwide.
Personalized Learning Initiative: Tutor Corps Evaluation
The University of Chicago Education Lab is partnering with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to scale personalized tutoring in the wake of the pandemic.
Unlocking Literacy Potential: Bridging the Gap for High School Readers
In 2020, the Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to rigorously design, test, and scale the impact of its Structured Literacy program on students’ reading proficiency levels.
Coaching with Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL)
The Education Lab partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to pilot the Coaching with CAL program, which offers high-dosage tutoring to students through education technology platforms.
Latest Updates
How In-School Tutoring Benefits Both Attendance and Math Scores
Education Week’s Olina Banerji talks with Education Lab Senior Research Director Monica Bhatt about preliminary results from the Personalized Learning Initiative, which found that in-school tutoring is leading to positive effects on math scores.
High dosage tutoring brings math gains, study finds
K-12 Dive’s Kara Arundel speaks with Education Lab senior research director Monica Bhatt about initial results from the Personalized Learning Initiative, which shows improvement in math for students from Chicago Public Schools and Georgia’s Fulton County Schools after participating in consistent, school-day tutoring programs.
Working on Womanhood: Reducing PTSD among teen girls
Education Lab Senior Research Director Dr. Monica Bhatt joined a discussion moderated by Harvard Public Health with Youth Guidance and a Working on Womanhood (WOW) alum to share about the impact of the program on young girls’ mental health.
