The journey to becoming a scholar
LePage, a Massachusetts native, first joined the McCourt community as a policy analyst at FutureEd, an independent, education-focused think tank at the McCourt School, where she used her passion for gender justice to explore racial and gender disparities in school discipline. LePage also made recommendations for how Title IX should be administered, a topic she previously studied for her undergraduate honors thesis.
During her time at FutureEd, LePage helped hire, manage and mentor a number of McCourt students who worked for the research center part-time. “I was fortunate to learn from them and their unique experiences prior to and during their time at McCourt,” said LePage, who, just a couple of months into her job, enrolled in the Master of Public Policy as a part-time evening program student.
“I pretty quickly found McCourt to be a good fit for me and really identified with its commitment to rigorous policy analysis and emphasis on using the tools you learn in class to help other people,” she said.
As her passion for advancing gender equity grew, LePage sought out one of her “dream jobs” at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), where she could focus solely on gender-specific issues. One year later, LePage is currently a research fellow at NWLC, exploring a range of topics — from women’s limited access to affordable child care and reproductive health care to their labor force participation and income security during the pandemic.