Bronwyn Nichols Lodato is Senior Vice President at NORC and directs the Education and Child Development Studies (ECD) department, overseeing study implementation, business development, and strategic planning for the department.
Lodato has extensive experience conducting large- and small-scale education studies, with a special focus on post-secondary research. She has seen first hand the impact that external factors -- like household income and family structure -- play in educational outcomes for students. In her role, she collaborates with experts in other NORC departments as well as outside experts to promote interdisciplinary research that yields insight to inform sound policy recommendations.
Lodato has served in a leadership capacity on research projects for such clients as the U.S. Department of Education and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as other public and private organizations. Recent notable projects include the Gates Millennium Scholars Tracking and Longitudinal (GMS) Study and the Design of a Joint Retrospective Evaluation of Fellowship Programs. The GMS Study, a 10-year longitudinal study of 14,000 respondents, evaluated the impact of scholarships targeted to low-income students on college attendance as well as college performance and degree attainment. Currently, she is co-Principal Investigator on a grant from The Sloan Foundation to design a comparative evaluation of graduate fellowship programs. Lodato also has administrative oversight of the design and implementation of the National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE). This survey, for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the first national study of child care needs and available resources in more than 20 years.