TJ D’Agostino

Assistant Professor of the Practice

TJ D’Agostino is an Assistant Professor of the Practice at the Keough School of Global Affairs’ Pulte Institute for Global Development. He is also a Kellogg Institute for International Studies and Institute for Educational Initiatives fellow who has worked at the intersection of research, policy, and practice in educational development for nearly 20 years.

TJ's scholarship focuses on comparative education policy, examining systems and institutions and their role in improving educational outcomes for vulnerable children in low- and middle-income contexts. He also explores the role and contributions of faith-based institutions and how they fit within comparative policy contexts and school and systems improvement, emphasizing language, literacy, inclusion, and at-risk youth, examining the role of faith-based educational institutions in Africa and Latin America.

The other central strand in his research is in systems improvement and educational policy in low-resource settings, focusing on vulnerable children and foundational skills development. His recent work in this area focuses on language in education policy and its intersection with foundational literacy and implementation research exploring how to improve the consistent impact of promising interventions to improve student outcomes at scale.

TJ is a principal investigator for the USAID-funded global education research grant SHARE (Supporting Holistic and Actionable Research in Education), where he leads “Language of Instruction Transitions in Education Systems” (LITES), a study in five African countries and the Philippines. He also oversees SHARE’s “Deaf Education Language of Instruction Transitions in Education Systems” (DELITES), a study in three countries focused on language and literacy outcomes for learners who are deaf and hard of hearing.

He founded and co-led Notre Dame’s educational engagements in Haiti from 2010 to 2020, where he grew programs and research in early grade reading, teacher training, and systems strengthening. The initiative produced the most successful literacy interventions in Haiti and a vital set of programs to drive further research.

TJ received his doctorate in Education Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School of Education and his bachelor’s and master’s in education from the University of Notre Dame.