Student - College of Education

Qiulin He (Jocelyn) (she/hers) is a doctoral student in Educational Policy and Planning and a Graduate Research Assistant at the Texas Education Research Center, where she immerses herself in both quantitative and qualitative research, drawing on panel data from the Texas pre-K to workforce population.

Her academic journey began with a focus on economics and finance, culminating in a Master of Arts in Economics and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance from the University of Melbourne. Her early career in business and finance, where she held roles as an investment analyst, capital market analyst, and strategy consultant, provided her with a comprehensive understanding of socioeconomic structures, organizational dynamics, and policy implementation. However, ongoing reflection on these experiences led her to explore deeper questions about how socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors shape self-concepts through education, ultimately prompting her transition into academia.

My research centers on the role of teachers in shaping students postsecondary pathways, with a particular focus on career and technical education (CTE) in underprivileged communities.

I am particularly interested in how teachers balance their responsibilities for students' cognitive development with fostering essential noncognitive skills such as decisionmaking, selfefficacy, and resilience. By examining how teachers interpret their roles and how these perceptions inform their instructional and interpersonal behaviors, my work seeks to illuminate the intersection of academic and personal development in students.

My approach is interdisciplinary, drawing from organizational studies, sociology, and educational psychology, and I employ a mixed-methods framework to capture both qualitative insights from teacher experiences and quantitative analysis of student success data.