Jonathan C.W. Davis is a Senior Research Associate on the P-12 Research Team at The Education Trust—a national nonprofit that works to close opportunity gaps that disproportionately affect students of color and students from low-income families. In this role, he supports, develops, and executes original research that aims to unearth and address inequities in college and career readiness.

Prior to joining Ed Trust, Jonathan served as a senior research associate on the Equity and Access Studies in Education (EASE) Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he conducted research that focused on the interplay between education politics, school actor expectations, and college and career readiness. Specifically, Jonathan studied and documented the manner in which school actors developed and sustained college-going cultures and how those schooling environments shaped underserved student groups’ access to post-secondary pathways — whether college or career. Additionally, Jonathan was a researcher with the Academic Advancement Program (AAP) at UCLA.

Raised in Birmingham, AL and a recipient of the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship, Jonathan holds a doctorate degree in education — with an emphasis in urban schooling and education policy —from the UCLA, a master’s degree in higher education administration from Vanderbilt University, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Berea College.