Sarath Kraus is the director of systems change management and a doctoral candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Her research examines how interpretations of equity shape state funding policies. Her professional background is rooted in finance, strategic operations, and higher education administration. She currently serves within UNLV’s business operations division, working on the chief financial officer’s administrative team. In this capacity, she stewards university resources, strengthens internal policies, and leads initiatives that enhance operational efficiency and effectiveness. These responsibilities shape her understanding of how institutional priorities are negotiated, how funding decisions are made, and how policy reforms unfold within complex organizations.

This professional experience informs the lens through which Sarath approaches her dissertation research. Her study, Funding Equity for Whom? A Discourse Analysis of Nevada’s Performance–Based Funding Policy Reform, investigates how policymakers conceptualize and negotiate funding equity during the redesign of Nevada’s higher education funding formula. Through qualitative analysis of real-time committee deliberations, she examines how race‑based and race‑neutral interpretations of equity influence policy design and ultimately determine the equity of the funding model.

Before joining UNLV, Sarath served as a strategic operations manager at Yale University, where she advanced enterprise systems adoption, financial stewardship, organizational transformation, and operational excellence across campus. Prior to that role, she provided administrative oversight for a $12 million Gastrointestinal Specialized Program of Research Excellence grant at the University of Michigan. She holds a Bachelor of Science from California State University, Fresno, and a Master of Business Administration from West Chester University.