Joyce Tagal

Joyce is in her second year at Stanford, having completed a MA in Education (Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies) from the Graduate School of Education in 2019. Currently, she is pursuing a MA in Public Policy. Joyce’s research interests focus on the politics of transitional democracies, specifically in Southeast Asia, and the education of Southeast Asian refugee communities in the United States.

Before coming to Stanford, Joyce spent 10 years in education and development policy in Southeast Asia. Her first job out of college was with the Prime Minister’s Department in Malaysia, where she worked on K-12 education policy with a focus on expanding access to early childhood education. After that, Joyce worked at Teach For Malaysia (the Malaysian arm of the global Teach For All network) and later McKinsey & Company as a consultant in the Public Policy practice.

Joyce came to Stanford to increase her econometric and programming toolkit, and she has learned so much since she has been here. Joyce has increased her Python (CS106ap woot!), R/tidyverse (Data Challenge Lab!) and brushed up on her statistics and math skills. She also been fortunate to have good mentors in the Public Policy department, especially Bruce Cain and Lanhee Chen, who have always been willing to offer their advice and support. Joyce has been a Teaching Assistant for Cain and Chen’s “Campaigns” class and “Political Analysis for Policymakers”, and she will be a Teaching Assistant for Chen’s “The Politics of Policy Making” in the Spring.

As Joyce reflected on her time in Public Policy, she said, “I also love my Public Policy cohort – we’ve been through challenging problem sets and much more challenging life problems together, and I’m so excited to walk with them this graduation.”