My work engages the history of social science theories and methods as a window into the politics of race and social policy.  My dissertation project examines this relationship within the politics of urban school desegregation in the 1960s.  I argue that new government-sponsored research on race and education, originally intended to support progressive education reform, actually narrowed the framing and scope of school desegregation, driving a wedge between activist demands and official calls to end segregation.  My other work compliments this line of inquiry, including a working paper that examines the legacy of the politics of school desegregation for contemporary models of urban school reform.  I am currently preparing an article manuscript on the political history of experimental design in welfare policy evaluation research.