Natalia A. Palacios is a sixth year Ph.D. student in Human Development and Social Policy in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She is a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program for Education Sciences, funded by the Institute for Education Sciences and was awarded the American Psychological Association Minority Predoctoral Fellowship. She is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute for Policy Research. Natalia works with her advisor, Dr. P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, on the Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City Study.

With a long-standing commitment to developmental, early education, and policy research, her overarching goal as a scholar is to advance the understanding of effective programs that improve children’s chances for academic success. With strong multidisciplinary training, her research focuses on issues specific to minority and immigrant children, the complex factors affecting the transition to school, teacher quality, and children’s cognitive development. Natalia lines's of research inform each other to attain a more nuanced understanding of achievement in understudied but fast growing groups. By focusing on these research questions and using multiple rigorous methodologies, she aims to contribute to the fund of knowledge necessary to address the significant challenges to educational policy and practice in the United States.