From William T. Grant Foundation
Five Early-Career Researchers Selected for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2027
The William T. Grant Foundation is pleased to announce the newest class of William T. Grant Scholars. Launched in 1982, the Scholars Program supports the professional development of promising researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences who have received their terminal degrees within the past seven years. To date, the program has sponsored more than 200 talented researchers.
Scholars receive $350,000 to execute rigorous five-year research plans that stretch their skills and knowledge into new disciplines, content areas, or methods. As they commence their projects, they build mentoring relationships with experts in areas pertinent to their development, and further their research and professional development through annual retreats and workshops with fellow Scholars, Foundation staff, and other senior researchers...
Niloufar Salehi is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Salehi will examine how one can leverage community participation to develop a software system to ensure that school assignment algorithms do a better job of combatting inequality. In the first of three phases, Salehi will use interviews, storyboarding, prototyping, and simulation exercises in which administrators and parents will engage in a participatory system design process to produce a school assignment software system. Phase 2 tests how parents respond to the decisions made by the software system. The software system will be deployed in the San Francisco Unified School District in Phase 3. Salehi has expertise in computer science and human-computer interaction. Professor Catherine Albiston, the Jackson H. Ralston Professor of Law at Berkeley, will provide mentorship on the application of procedural justice theory to software systems. Professr Itai Ashlagi, Associate Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, will provide mentorship on implementing software mechanisms to achieve policy goals.
