Please join us in celebrating a trio of new appointments and promotions at the Pullias Center! Well-deserved kudos to Dr. Julie Posselt, who was recently promoted to Professor of Education at the Rossier School of Education, Dr. Ron Hallett, who joins the Center as Research Professor, and Dr. Elizabeth Holcombe, promoted to Senior Research Associate.
“One of the most exciting parts of my role is welcoming new colleagues and seeing others promoted,” stated Pullias Center Director Dr. Adrianna Kezar. “Julie’s promotion is well deserved and reflects her stellar contributions to the field and USC. Elizabeth has been instrumental on several Pullias projects and this promotion acknowledges her growing expertise and quality work. And, Ron joining the Center solidifies a long-time collaboration that has brought enormous contributions to the Center and the field of higher education.”
“Pullias is growing and stronger than ever; these promotions and hires help us in continuing to be a leader for equity in higher education,” Kezar continued.
Learn more about these well-deserved appointments:
Dr. Posselt has been appointed to Professor of Education, from her previous role as Associate Professor.
A national expert on graduate admissions, she focuses on selective sectors of higher education— graduate education, STEM fields, and elite undergraduate institutions — where longstanding practices and cultural norms are being negotiated to better identify talent and educate students in a changing society.
“USC’s strategic vision includes a commitment to ‘scholarship with consequence,’ and in practice this includes valuing translational research in promotion and tenure processes,” stated Posselt. “This has been an excellent fit with my work and I’m grateful to everyone who has reviewed and supported my and my team’s work over the years.”
Posselt is the founding director and Principal Investigator of the California Consortium of Inclusive Doctoral Education (C-CIDE), and more recently, has expanded the program into the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium, the national scale-up of the C-CIDE pilot. The consortium is a research-practice partnership of faculty and administrators in major research universities that aims to reduce inequalities in graduate education, by developing and advancing equitable admissions, recruitment, mentoring, and training practices.
In 2023, Posselt received a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to examine evaluation rubrics for racial bias. She also serves as Principal Investigator of the IGEN Research Hub, which advances knowledge and practice about equity in graduate education and the disciplines, especially those in STEM.
Dr. Posselt is the author of “Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping” (Harvard University Press, 2016). Learn more about Dr. Posselt’s work here.
Dr. Ron Hallett is joining the Pullias Center as Research Professor from the University of LaVerne.
Hallett is rejoining the Pullias Center team, having received his Ph.D. from USC Rossier in 2009. While a Ph.D. candidate, Hallett worked on research related to students experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity with Bill Tierney and Jarrett Gupton. Since 2015, Hallett has continued his work at the Pullias Center with Adrianna Kezar and Zoe Corwin on the Promoting At-promise Student Success (PASS) Project.
Currently, he serves as a Lead Investigator on the PASS Project, a multi-year mixed-methods research project at the Center. Conducted in partnership with three University of Nebraska campuses, PASS is dedicated to deepening understandings of at-promise student success in postsecondary institutions.
"I am dedicated to research-practice partnerships because they have the potential to address the critical issues that exist in higher education," Hallett said, "I look forward to continuing this work in collaboration with my colleagues at the Pullias Center in my new role."
Dr. Hallett is the co-author of the recently-published book “Creating a Campus-Wide Culture of Student Success” (Routledge, 2023) which, utilizing findings from the PASS study, describes evidence-based strategies to create a campus culture conducive to truly supporting all students.
Dr. Elizabeth Holcombe has been promoted to Senior Research Associate for the Pullias Center.
For the past 4 years, Dr. Holcombe has served as a Senior Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center, after receiving her Ph.D. in urban education policy from the USC Rossier in 2018.
Her current work involves serving as a key contributor and researcher on the Change Leadership Toolkit, which provides tools and resources to help campus leaders and teams develop strategies that contribute to systemic change and transformation initiatives. Holcombe is also a vital team member on the Shared Equity Leadership project, which provides a qualitative study of equity-minded leadership teams in higher education, in partnership with the American Council on Education (ACE). Her research uses an organizational lens to understand various policies and practices that affect student success, including undergraduate teaching and assessment, faculty workforce and development issues, and leadership in higher education.
"I am excited for this new opportunity, and I look forward to continuing to grow as a scholar and learn from Adrianna and other wonderful Pullias colleagues,” stated Holcombe.
Holcombe graduated from Vanderbilt University with a double major in political science and Spanish. After teaching elementary school in Atlanta with Teach for America, she moved to New York City and received her master’s degree in politics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She worked in student affairs for several years in New York before joining the Pullias Center.
