Grace Pai, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at Queens College in the City University of New York (CUNY). Her interdisciplinary scholarship examines local and global educational equity across various fields through a combination of quantitative (ranging from rigorous, causal inference methods to survey research), qualitative, and historical research methods. Her current research focuses on teachers’ experience of implementing culturally responsive and sustaining math education, the development of mathematical affinity and identity in children, and fostering digital equity through applying computational thinking to mathematics education. Building off of past research supported by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she is also currently completing a book manuscript in contract with Rutgers University Press titled Leave No One Behind? Education for All through the Eyes of Out-of-school Children in Sierra Leone. Her public scholarship has been featured on featured on NPR’s Academic Minute, and also includes writing op-eds on fighting anti-blackness and discrimination against the Asian community that have appeared in the Daily News and Inside Higher Ed.

As a former math teacher in the NYC DOE and Assistant Professor of mathematics and interdisciplinary studies at Guttman Community College, she has experience teaching a wide range of courses and student populations grounded in principles of cultural responsiveness, student agency, formative feedback, and active learning. At Guttman, she also directed the international education program, for which she won the President’s Award for Community Engagement. She was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Transformative Learning in the Humanities (TLH) Faculty Fellowship and Pedagogy Co-Leader role for her exemplary engagement in improving teaching and learning in higher education.

She has also led professional development workshops and webinars on culturally responsive pedagogy and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), resulting in her winning the Margie Hobbs award from the American Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges and becoming a co-PI of an $800,000 US State Department funded Stevens Initiative Grant that connects students from five CUNY colleges (BMCC, Guttman, Hostos, LaGuardia, and Queens) to undergraduate students in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Palestine through virtual exchange (2021-2023).

Her service work centers around her firm belief in enacting diversity/equity/inclusion/access, fiscal responsibility and transparency, and shared governance in higher education. She currently serves as an elected member of CUNY’s University Faculty Senate, CUNY’s Budget Advisory Committee, appointed member on CUNY’s University Advisory Council on Diversity (UACD), and appointed member on the School of Education Dean’s Advisory Board.

Prior to joining CUNY, she worked as the lead evaluator of the citywide College Access for All initiative at the New York City Department of Education, and as a math teacher development specialist for the Eastern Cape Department of Education in South Africa through the US Peace Corps. She has also served as a US Peace Corps education/youth community development volunteer in Bangladesh. She holds a Ph.D. in International Education with a concentration in applied statistics from New York University, an M.Ed. in Secondary School Mathematics from Brooklyn College, an Ed. M. in Human Development and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.S. from the Stern School of Business at New York University.