Staff
Texas Schools Project Staff
Trey Miller, PhD
Director, Texas Schools Project
Phone: 972-883-3808 | tmiller@utdallas.edu
Dr. Trey Miller is an associate professor of economics and director of the Texas Schools Project in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Miller has led mixed methods research projects with multidisciplinary research teams for clients including the Institute of Education Sciences, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Greater Texas Foundation and the Houston Endowment.
Miller has led three IES-funded research projects with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), which are focused on informing the implementation and scaling of statewide reform to policies surrounding the delivery of postsecondary developmental education in Texas.
Miller also currently serves as the co-principal investigator of the College Completion Network, which engages in research and coordinates the activities and dissemination strategies of five aligned IES-funded research projects evaluating strategies to improve student success in college. Miller also recently completed a statewide study of dual credit education programs for THECB, and a study for the Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest assessing transitions to postsecondary education for students with disabilities in Texas.
In addition to research reports and briefs, Miller’s research has been published in top-tier journals including the American Educational Research Journal, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Research in Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Economics of Education Review and Demography. Miller also has extensive experience presenting research to policymakers and practitioners including the THECB, Texas Association of Community Colleges, the Texas Governor’s Office, and the Texas Senate and House Education Committees; and his commentaries have appeared in outlets including the Texas Tribune, U.S. News and World Report, and the RAND Blog.
Miller received his PhD in economics from Stanford University.
Holly Kosiewicz, PhD
ERC Director and Researcher, Texas Schools Project
Phone: 972-883-2964 | hkosiewicz@utdallas.edu
Dr. Holly Kosiewicz’s research broadly investigates the effectiveness and implementation of efforts designed to improve college access and success, particularly among traditionally underserved students. As a mixed methods researcher, she has conducted studies investigating developmental education, dual credit coursework, student mental health and the impacts of COVID-19 on community colleges.
Her work has been published in the American Education Research Journal, Research in Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, and Community College Review, and funded by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the Spencer Foundation, Greater Texas Foundation, the Trellis Foundation, and U.S. Congress.
Kosiewicz received her PhD in urban education policy from the University of Southern California.
Camila Morales, PhD
Director of Research, UTDallas-ERC, Texas Schools Project
Phone: 972-883-2482 | camila.morales@utdallas.edu
Camila Morales is an assistant professor of economics at The University of Texas at Dallas. She also serves as the director of research for the Texas Schools Project and The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Education Research Center.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of education economics, labor economics and the economics of immigration. Specifically, she studies the impact of immigration policies on the labor market outcomes of young adults, as well as the efficacy of school-level programs and peer interactions on the academic achievement of immigrants, refugees and English Learners.
Zhixiang (Mark) Lu
Associate Director, Texas Schools Project
Phone: 972-883-5478 | zxl063000@utdallas.edu
Mark Lu is the associate director at the Texas Schools Project, overseeing data resource management and research support operations. His responsibilities include downloading data, managing data organization, and data translation, as well as handling project permissions and setting up working environments for researchers. Additionally, Mark collaborates with the Office of Information Technology (OIT) on OS patching, firmware updates, and server-side as well as network firewall configurations.
Mark also leads the data team in providing longitudinal data-building services for external projects.
Prior to joining the Texas Schools Project, Mark worked as a database developer and administrator for three years. He holds degrees in computer science and geospatial information science.
Jessica Guzman
Associate Financial Analyst
Phone: 972-883-4939 | Jessica.Guzman@UTDallas.edu
Jessica Guzman is an associate financial analyst for the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences (EPPS), the Texas Schools Project, and the Institute for Urban Policy Research (IUPR). She provides assistance with managing grants in EPPS, and she manages budgets and grants for the Texas Schools Project and IUPR.
Guzman joined The University of Texas at Dallas in 2022 following a 20-year career in mortgage finance operations.
Lynn Bergeland Morgan, PhD
Research Scientist II, Texas Schools Project
Dr. Lynn Bergeland Morgan is a research scientist II with the Texas Schools Project. Morgan’s research interests include education economics, health economics and labor economics.
Her work has been published in the Journal of Applied Econometrics and she has worked as a researcher on an Institute of Education Sciences-funded project examining short-, medium- and long-term outcomes of dual language immersion (DLI) programs in Texas.
Prior to joining the Texas Schools Project, Morgan taught economics at Texas Christian University and Weatherford College. She also participated in Teach for America, teaching high school math for two years in Denver, Colorado.
Morgan is also involved with education in her community. She was elected to the Aledo ISD Board of Trustees in 2025.
In 2024, Morgan received her PhD in economics from The University of Texas at Dallas.
Graduate Research Assistants
Arslan Khalid
Arslan Khalid is a doctoral candidate in public policy and political economy at The University of Texas at Dallas. He expects to graduate in summer 2025. His research is centered around education policy development and analysis.
Khalid’s dissertation focuses on teacher turnover in Texas public schools. He is currently working on two research projects that are closely tied together. The first project looks at the impact of COVID-19 on trends in teacher turnover. The second aims to uncover the impact of the four-day school week schedule on teacher turnover and student achievement.
Daniel A. Vargas Castaño
Daniel.VargasCastano@UTDallas.edu
Daniel Alejandro Vargas Castaño is a graduate research assistant at the Texas Schools Project (TSP). Daniel has a BS in mathematics and economics from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
Daniel is currently an economics PhD student at The University of Texas at Dallas. His research interests are economics of education, applied microeconomics and labor economics.
Dareem Antoine
Dareem Antoine is a graduate research assistant at the Texas Schools Project (TSP) where he supports the project’s research mission.
Antoine has a BS in mathematics, a BBA in economics and four years of experience as a classroom educator in a major urban school district.
Antoine is currently an economics PhD student at The University of Texas at Dallas. His academic pursuits are rooted in K-12 education, with research interests in education inequity, student labor market outcomes, education and economic growth and education technology and innovation.
Ahana Samat
Ahana Samat is a research assistant at the Texas Schools Project (TSP). She holds a bachelor’s in economics from The University of Texas at Dallas.
Currently, Ahana is a PhD student in public policy and political economy at The University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests include education policy and disability research.