Rachel White

Dr. White is an associate professor of Educational Leadership & Policy at The University of Texas at Austin and a fellow on the L.D. Haskew Centennial Professorship in Public School Administration. She is also the founder and principal investigator of The Superintendent Lab, a central hub for data, research, insights and innovation on the school district superintendency and home to the National Longitudinal Superintendent Database. Dr. White is also a faculty in residence with AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

Prior to joining UT Austin, Dr. White was an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Old Dominion University. Dr. White is a former local school board member/vice president and high school cross country and track & field coach. She also previously served as a policy analyst for the Michigan Association for School Administrators and as the associate director of policy and advocacy for The Ohio College Access Network.

Dr. White's research centers around 1) issues of power, voice, diversity and inclusion in education policymaking and implementation processes, and 2) examining structures and policies that contribute to or counteract equitable K-12 education systems. Currently, much of her work focuses on inequities in superintendent labor markets, superintendent mobility and attrition, and how superintendents navigate politically contentious spaces. Her work has been published in the highest citation impact journals in education leadership and policy research including Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Education Policy, Journal of Educational Administration, Educational Administration Quarterly, AERA Open, Teachers College Record, Education and Urban Society, and Leadership and Policy in Schools.

Dr. White has published book chapters in The Oxford Handbook on U.S. Education Law and The Handbook on the Politics of Education, as well as articles in editorially-reviewed journals widely read by education leaders including Phi Delta Kappan and Education Next. She regularly appears as a commentator on issues related to education policy and leadership in national and regional media outlets, including Education Week, EdSurge, The Conversation, Governing Magazine, NPR, The Washington Post and others.

Dr. White's research has been funded by The Spencer Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences. She has also been nationally recognized for her research contributions. For example, she was the recipient of the William J. Davis Award for most outstanding article published in Educational Administration Quarterly, the University Council for Educational Administration's Jack A. Culbertson Award for an outstanding junior educational leadership professor in recognition of significant contributions to the field of educational leadership, and the Association for Education Finance and Policy's New Scholar Award.