Mona's research interests include U.S. state politics, legislative delegation, and charter schools. Her research engages with the political science, public administration, and education literature to demonstrate the effect of legislative political institutions on K-12 student achievement by the degree of policy discretion elected officials grant in statutes and regulations. The first category of her research addresses legislators’ electoral motivation to grant less statutory discretion and the effect of legislative political institutions on statutory discretion. The second category of her research creates new quantitative measures of statutory discretion using automated text analysis and evaluates the effect of statutory discretion on K-12 school and student achievement.

Mona’s teaching interests include U.S. political institutions, policymaking process, and K-12 education policy. At NYU Wagner, she teaches the “Introduction to Public Policy” and “Policy Formation and Policy Analysis” graduate courses.

Mona received her Ph.D. and Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. She worked as a Research Analyst at the Center for Education Policy Analysis and Policy Analysis for California Education at Stanford University. In addition, Mona worked as a consultant and a fellow for the San Diego Unified School District, New Jersey State Department of Education, New York City Department of Education, and California Assembly Committee on Education.