"gleaming"?

There is some funky chronology in these three paragraphs. The reader bounces rather confusingly between UT Austin, UNC, and Mumbai. Keep it simple and maintain basic chronology

Keep the tone more casual. Unlike academic writing, this should be aimed at a more general audience, who wants to read writing that sounds more like they talk. Here's my suggested revision: Dubash knew he didn't want to go into the medical field, so he set his sights on a doctorate where he could do more research on cell biology.

Unnecessary, and another mysterious "we"—is this referring to y'all, as the authors? If so, refrain from writing yourself into the story. Keep the focus on the main character

too wordy; also, who is "us"? Instead: "Dubash's sotry began in his youth in Mumbai..."

Open with the quote and position the attributing phrase ("Dubash explains") at the end of the sentence so readers "hear" the main characters voice more clearly

This sentence is starting to skew more toward telling rather than showing. To illustrate the difference, here's my revision of the paragraph:

Adi Dubash's slightly grey beard stubble is neatly trimmed, his hair precisely combed. The scrape and stomp of Dubash's steps are regular and rhythmic as they echo throughout Plyler Hall. Lining the bookshelves of his office are tidily arranged pictures of friends and family members, all in uniform picture frames.

Here is more telling instead of showing. Just describe the objects and pictures in a way that will make the reader come to the conclusion that they represent him.

but what IS the smell??

As a general bit of design advice (especially for those readers whose eyes might be a little older, I suggest boosting your body text size up one and narrowing the text box. It's much harder for eyes to track text across the whole screen, and since you basically have endless real estate, you don't need to fill the whole screen horizontally.

wordy; "but prior to this, her life and daily routine looked quite different."

Avoid writing yourself into the story; it takes away focus on your main character, and is a bit of a cliche "short cut."

Instead, find a way to end with a quote from an interviewee that reinforces the main insight/takeaway of the story.

Another paragraph break here

Cut this since the same info is given in her direct quote

This is a pretty long paragraph for this style of writing. A paragraph break here would be helpful for the reader.

This paragraph shifts to the present tense, but since it happened in the past, keep it in the past tense.

Use the last name rather than the first

As much as possible, open the sentence with the quote and follow it a simple attribution.

"He was difficult and we definitely ran into, but it had a lot. We tried to do business counseling. All the stuff," said Cochran.

I appreciate the link to the outside source, but it's sorta floating here on its own, not really connected to any of the information that precedes or follows it.

This strikes me as a set up to a quote from Sarah. Notice that we haven't actually "heard" from Sarah directly yet, and it looks like we won't until the fourth paragraph. Ideally, we should hear (direct quotes) from the main character no later than the second or third paragraph.

This should be a paragraph break

State the name of the restaurant at first mention

with chairs? (without this detail, it sounds like the students are sitting on the table)

There are some formatting errors (spacing, etc.) that can result from copy/pasting text from other word processing platforms (Word is especially problematic). When laying out your own story, when you have more time, be sure to proofread for this errors.

Another reason to drop the honorific: do you know for sure if Cochran is married?

In this type of writing, drop the honorifics and just use the last name after giving the full name on first mention.

While I appreciate the inclusion of these robust sensory details, I see that there are about 5 paragraphs of description without any indication yet what the problem/conflict is, or who the main character is... This needs to be established earlier, ideally no later than the second or third paragraph.

If you had more time, finding additional interviewees to comment on this would make the message more powerful and persuasive.

Good job hyperlinking your source in-text. But to keep the reader's attention on the info, open with the quote and put the attribution at the end of the sentence: "About two-thirds of U.S. students....." reported Education Week.

This strikes me as the main insight/lesson—or at least has the potential to be. Up until this point, it's a bit unclear why the reader should care about the noisy landscaping crew or the students in this classroom. But what strikes me about this paragraph is that you're complicating our notion of what "distracts" students—that is, things both inside and outside the classroom. If that's the case, then this needs to be stated earlier. I think it would also help you make this point by including details about the students being distracted by their devices while sitting in that classroom. Then the reader is able to "witness" the various layers of distraction found in that learning environment.

This is also unnecessary; it's repeating the same info given in the first part of the sentence

conflicted?

Unnecessary

I think this is bolded in an effort to make it a pullout quote? If so, conventionally the original quote stays formatted and positioned in the body of the text and the pullout repeats the quote in a larger/stylized embedded space to emphasize the idea. I've included a sample screenshot of a pull quote in the discussion board reply

This is unnecessary. Your conversation with Elijah isn't actually part of the story (i.e., don't write yourself or your info-gathering process into the narrative). Elijah's interview is useful for reconstructing the scene.

Include full name and class standing

Unnecessary since you already established this in a previous paragraph.

I would definitely size down the body text—the sizing makes it somewhat difficult to navigate the story since only so much of it can "fit" on the screen