Marissa is a first-year Ph.D student in the Education Policy and Leadership Program. She received B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Statistics from James Madison University and her M.A. in Experimental Psychology from Appalachian State University. She is a research assistant with the Maryland Equity Project. Her research interests broadly focus on early childhood education inequities and program interventions for low-income families. Before beginning the doctoral program Marissa taught Math, Money, and You, a class she developed to focus on personal finance for gifted middle school students, for Duke TIP at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina and Sherman College in Sherman, Texas.