Melissa Arnold Lyon

Assistant Professor Department of Public Administration and Policy

Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy

University at Albany, State University of New York

Melissa Arnold Lyon (Mimi) is an assistant professor of public policy at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. Mimi studies the political economy of education policy, focusing on labor, governance, and teacher politics and policy. She seeks to answer big questions: Who governs education—or, more specifically—who matters for education policymaking and implementation? How do economic inequalities shape the politics of education and education governance? How do educational institutions shape and get shaped by economic incentives and behaviors? Mimi’s research has been published in journals including the Journal of Human Resources, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Education Finance and Policy, Economics of Education Review, Policy Studies Journal, Political Behavior, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, and Teachers College Record. Her work has been covered extensively in national and local news media, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, CNN, The TODAY Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, and CBS News. Mimi received her Ph.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to graduate school, she was a sixth grade teacher in Houston, Texas.