Project SHARPE

About the Team

Project Leaders

PI: Dr. Juan Carlos Garibay

Juan C. Garibay is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Race and Public Education in the South. His research takes a critical quantitative approach, utilizing critical theoretical frameworks to examine campus racial dynamics and racial inequality in postsecondary education and STEM education for racial/ethnic minoritized groups. His research has been published in numerous high-impact scholarly journals, including Research in Higher Education, the Review of Higher Education, the Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of College Student Development, Race, Ethnicity and Education, the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in higher education and organizational change, and B.S. in applied mathematics, all from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has fifteen years of expertise in advanced quantitative research and management. At UCLA, he was a research analyst with the Higher Education Research Institute, Center for the Study of Inequality, and Office of Faculty Development and Diversity. He was a 2020 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Recipient and a first-generation college student.

Co-PI: Dr. Amalia Daché

Amalia Daché is an Afro-Cuban American scholar and associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Daché’s major research areas are postcolonial geographic contexts of higher education, Afro-Latina/o/x studies, community and student resistance, and the college-access experiences of African diasporic students and communities. She is lead editor of Rise Up! Activism as Education, published in 2019 by Michigan State University Press. Dr. Daché engages in research within contested urban geographies, including Havana, Cuba; Cape Town, South Africa; and Ferguson, Missouri and has published work in leading educational journals. She has won numerous awards and fellowships from the National Academy of Education, Spencer Foundation, Association for the Study of Higher Education, and The Rockefeller Institute. Dr. Dache has appeared as an expert in film and national media outlets, including Spike Lee’s documentary Two Fists Up, Red Table Talk: The Estefans, MSNBC’s The ReidOut, American Voices, José Díaz-Balart Reports and Black News Tonight. She is currently writing a book on AfroCuban societies, organizations dating back to pre-colonial West Africa with relics in urban centers in the South and Northeast of the United States.

Research Team

Aaliyah Churchill

Aaliyah is a Ph.D. student in the Community Psychology program at the University of Virginia. At UVA, she is both a Dean’s Doctoral Fellow and an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow. Prior to beginning her doctoral journey, Aaliyah obtained a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Gender Studies at the University of Louisville. Additionally, she received a M.A. in Clinical Psychology at California State University Northridge where she completed research focusing on the impact of racial and environmental stressors on the psychosocial and socioemotional development of Black adolescents, while also exploring the protective role of ethnic-racial socialization and social support. Aaliyah is currently a graduate research assistant with the Promoting Healthy Adolescent Development Lab where she examines longitudinal associations of discriminatory experiences with the well-being of marginalized emerging adults.

Dan Moore-Lewis

Originally from Kingston, Jamaica Dan is a true believer of, and a testament to, the power of access to resources and support for underrepresented students. Dan is a Ph.D. student and dual Dean’s Fellow and Race and Inequality Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow in the Higher Education program at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development. Dan received her M.Ed. in Educational Psychology-Applied Developmental Science from UVA and her B.A. in Sociology from Randolph College. While at UVA, Dan was a Graduate Research Assistant with the Motivate Lab and assisted with projects examining mindset interventions in community college students. Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Dan worked with the Ron Brown Scholar Program where she supported low-income high achieving Black students through their college journeys; from application to graduation and everything in between. Dan’s current research at UVA focuses on marginalized college student experiences, particularly the intersection of race and first-generation college student status, and was recently awarded the Johnnie E. Merritt Graduate Fellowship for her doctoral work.

Astrid Pickenpack

Astrid Pickenpack is a Ph.D. student in Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She has a B.A and a MSc in SocioIogy from Pontificia Universidad de Chile. Her main research interests are, on one side, educational trajectories and transition to higher education of historically marginalized populations, and on the other side, knowledge construction in academia.

Jonathon Sun

Jonathon is a Ph.D student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education who studies college access using a mixed-methods approach and geographic information systems. His particular area of interest is understanding college access for Asian American students. Prior to beginning his Ph.D he worked as an assistant director for the center of diversity and inclusion and completed his M.A in Education Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri and completed his thesis on Asian American students religious experiences and his B.A in sociology at The Ohio State University where he worked on the Religious Leadership and Diversity Project.

Christian West

Christian P.L. West is a Ph.D. student in the Higher Education program at the University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development. Christian’s research centers the contemporary experiences of Black students at institutions with historical legacies of slavery and segregation. He holds a M.Ed. and B.A., both from the University of Virginia.

Past Students on Research Team

Christopher Mathis Ph.D.

Christopher Mathis is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. His scholarship explores critical race theory, access and equity within higher education, and the philosophical assumptions within legal education. More pointedly, he studies the framework and incentive structures within higher education’s environments to identify factors contributing to inequality in our nation’s colleges and universities. His research on these topics spans several legal topics, including constitutional and tort law, education law and policy, and ethics. He primarily uses an empirical design incorporating critical lenses, statistical analysis, and qualitative methodologies.

Mathis has published in several journals, including Rutgers Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, and several leading education journals. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development. He also received his BS in Mathematics from Oakwood University and his JD from the University of South Carolina.