Jennifer is vice president of the Education & Child Development department at NORC. Over her 30-plus year research career, she has drawn on her training as a methodologist and her experiences as a former public housing resident and first-generation college student to help improve the social, academic, and economic outcomes of marginalized youth. She has established a reputation for being a creative thinker who brings extensive management expertise, tenacity, and a genuine appreciation for diversity of perspective to her work.

As vice president, Jennifer is committed to developing the next generation of confident, empowered, and empathetic researchers. In addition, she listens deeply to understand the opportunities and challenges that policymakers, practitioners, and other education stakeholders face to ensure that pragmatic research is developed and conducted in support of these needs. Lastly, she uses her deep substantive knowledge and methodological expertise to ensure that projects are conducted with the highest degree of rigor.

She serves as principal investigator on an array of research studies that span kindergarten to post-secondary education. She is leading an effort for the Gates Foundation to design, implement, test, and bring data sources together for a research and development ecosystem that helps educators access high-quality instructional materials that better meet the needs of Black, LatinX, and students experiencing poverty. To help improve the efficacy of civics education, Jennifer is overseeing separate evaluations of two supplemental action civics curriculum – Generation Citizen and Educating Youth for Positive Change – to assess their potential effects on high school students’ civic learning, motivation, and engagement.

Prior to joining NORC, Jennifer served as a senior scientist at Westat where she improved the rigor and internal validity of more than twenty i3 evaluations as a certified What Works Clearinghouse reviewer and oversaw numerous other education studies. Today, she remains motivated by her desire to make a positive impact in education through research, partnership, and empathy.