Katharine O. Strunk

Endowed Chairs College of Education

• Dr. Clifford E. Erickson Distinguished Chair in Education
• Established through a gift from Dr. W. Bruce Erickson

• Educational Administration

Bio

Katharine O. Strunk, Professor of Education Policy and Clifford E. Erickson Distinguished Chair in Education, is the co-director of the Michigan State University Education Policy Innovation Collaborative. Her research focuses on K-12 education governance, including teachers’ unions and the collective bargaining agreements they negotiate with school districts, teacher evaluation and compensation, and accountability policies.

Strunk earned a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Princeton University, and then pursued a master’s degree in economics and a PhD in Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University. Prior to joining the faculty at MSU, Dr. Strunk was an Assistant then an Associate Professor of Education and Policy at the University of Southern California, and has also taught education policy at University of California, Davis.

She has received multiple honors for her research, including the Junior Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association, a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the New Scholar Award from the Association for Education Finance and Policy. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of the journal Education Finance and Policy, and has also served on advisory boards for the California Charter Schools Association and the Los Angeles Unified School District, as well as the Board of Governors for the Association for Education Finance and Policy.