Professional Biography
Dr. Maya Kaul is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her work is centrally driven by a commitment to cultivating a thriving, diverse K–12 teaching profession. Her scholarship explores how educational reforms and the institutional and organizational conditions within schools and teacher education programs shape the K–12 teaching profession. In particular, her work examines how particular conceptions of teaching—such as a moral calling, a profession, or labor—become institutionalized through policy and come to shape teachers’ work and teacher education programs. Additionally, her research delves into the “black box” of policy implementation to investigate how individuals and organizations interpret, adapt, and even transform education policies before they hit the ground. To conduct this work, Kaul employs qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies and integrates theoretical perspectives from organizational theory, political science, and sociological theories of race.
Kaul earned her Ph.D. in education policy from Penn GSE in 2024. She has been recognized as a 2023 National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellow, an Institute of Education Sciences Predoctoral Fellow, and a David L. Clark Scholar. Her dissertation received the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from AERA Division L (Educational Policy & Politics) and the 2025 James D. Anderson Outstanding Dissertation Award from AACTE. Her scholarship has also been honored by the AERA Organizational Theory SIG and the AERA School Effectiveness and School Improvement SIG.
Prior to graduate school, Kaul worked at the Learning Policy Institute as a research and policy assistant. She started her career as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki studying Finland’s approaches to teacher education and professional development.
Kaul is currently working on a range of projects focused on the design, implementation, and institutionalization of teacher policy. First, in work supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Spencer Foundation, Kaul is working with Pam Grossman and Sarah Schneider Kavanagh on a series of projects focused on the K–12 teaching profession. This work includes a landscape analysis of the teaching profession, a study on the role of private philanthropies and foundations in shaping teacher policy, a 50-state landscape scan of teacher policy, and a policy implementation study of states re-designing K–12 teacher roles. Second, in work supported by Public Agenda, Kaul is leading a team studying the racial politics and policy implementation of Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education competencies in Pennsylvania. This work draws attention to the role of teacher education programs as organizations and teacher educators as policy actors in shaping the implementation of such instructional policies.
