Jennifer Laird

Jennifer Laird leads RTI’s evaluation of programs serving vulnerable youth, within the Center for Evaluation and Study of Educational Equity. With more than 17 years of experience in education research, Dr. Laird is an expert in quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. She is passionate about using research and evaluation to support work that addresses interpersonal and structural inequities across dimensions of race, class, and gender.

Among Dr. Laird’s current projects are a group of multistate, cross-sector evaluations of efforts to improve the educational experiences of children in foster care. She is also evaluating social enterprise organizations—double bottom-line businesses that sell quality goods and services while reinvesting their revenue to hire people who otherwise would be excluded from the work force. She serves as project director for an evaluation of the Stevens Initiative, a multilateral public-private partnership that funds virtual exchange programs between youth in the United States and the Middle East/North Africa.

Dr. Laird joined RTI in 2013 with the acquisition of MPR Associates. Previously, she worked at the American Institutes for Research. She is a member of the American Educational Research Association and Phi Beta Kappa.