Katie Mathias

Katie Mathias serves as Project Manager at the Equity Accelerator (formerly College Transition Collaborative at Stanford University), where she specializes in developing and evaluating interventions to promote student belonging and well-being in higher education. Her work includes managing large-scale research initiatives, including a groundbreaking social belonging intervention study across 23 institutions that demonstrated significant improvements in first-year completion rates. She currently leads a multi-institutional trial evaluating psychologically attuned probation notification letters, helping institutions develop more supportive communications for students facing academic challenges. Through her role, she has contributed to the development of innovative tools and approaches for improving student communications, including a toolkit for writing psychologically attuned academic standing notifications that has been widely adopted by college administrators. Her research demonstrates how small changes in institutional communication can significantly impact student motivation and engagement, particularly during challenging academic transitions. After earning her BA in Psychology with a specialization in Human Resources Management from the University of Waterloo, she has dedicated her career to bridging research and practice in higher education to create more equitable and supportive learning environments.