Ethan Chen (he/him) is a rising senior at the University of Chicago where he studies French Literature. An ethnographer by training, Ethan has conducted research both in the Chicagoland area and in France. At the University of Chicago, he currently co-teaches in the undergraduate interdisciplinary research lab, Mapping Global Chicago, alongside Professor Callie Maidhof. Under his guidance, the lab’s students examine how state and municipal laws converge to govern Chicago’s migrant communities.
In the past five years, Ethan has taught over 120 students through his involvement with Teach For America, Americorps, and the San Francisco Unified School District. As a classroom educator, he has witnessed firsthand the educational injustices—teacher shortages, sparse socioemotional support services, inadequate literacy curriculums…the list goes on—plaguing our nation’s public schools and how these inequalities disproportionately impact low-income, BIPOC, and English learner youth. Ethan thus turns to the law, and the sociolegal research anchoring legislation, as the solution to these inequalities. Indeed, he firmly believes that well-reasoned and well-researched legislation, once passed, can uplift the educational opportunities for millions of underserved students nationwide.
Upon graduation next spring, he plans on attending law school. During the SURF program, Ethan will be working with Ajay Mehrotra on his research projects studying tax law and policy and diversity in legal education and the profession.