Her work focuses broadly on education policy and evaluation, in particular the causes and consequences of inequality at various stages of the educational attainment process. She is currently investigating policies and practices aimed at improving college access, persistence, and degree completion at public four year universities and at community colleges. Kurlaender’s work has been published in a variety of academic and policy venues. She is co-editor (with Eric Grodsky) of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education: The Past and Future of California's Proposition 209, Harvard Education Press (2010). Kurlaender is the Davis Site Director of the UC Educational Evaluation Center. She received her doctorate in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in June 2005.