Research/Areas of Interest
Social-emotional development, longitudinal research, positive youth development and civic engagement, program evaluation
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy, Tufts University, USA
- BA, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, United States
Biography
Gretchen is a proud graduate of the Eliot-Pearson doctoral program in Child Study and Human Development at Tufts. She is a developmental psychologist and program evaluator with experience across multiple settings and countries and expertise in longitudinal research and social-emotional development. She works with a range of nonprofits and foundations to build evaluation capacity to maximize learning and impact.
Before starting her consulting business, Bee's Knees Consulting LLC, Gretchen served as the Vice President of Evaluation at City Year Headquarters, overseeing their national evaluation work across nearly 300 schools, reaching more than 150,000 students annually. At City Year, Gretchen built a research program and portfolio of evidence for a new City Year service model and empowered staff and AmeriCorps members with data and related insights. She provided consultation to City Year leaders and evaluation staff in 26 cities in the U.S., as well as affiliates in the UK and South Africa. She engaged a wide range of stakeholders in using data and developing systems for organizational learning, progress monitoring, performance measurement, and reporting. Her team led the design of City Year's internal evaluation instruments and studies, approaches to analyzing data, and tools to help field staff collect data and use it. Gretchen also coordinated City Year's external evaluation studies, identifying and partnering with third party researchers.
Before joining City Year, Gretchen was a Research Assistant Professor for the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For five years, she served as the Research and Policy Coordinator at the Children's Trust, a leading family support nonprofit created by the Massachusetts legislature to prevent child abuse and neglect. In this role, she helped successfully advocate for the establishment of the largest, statewide newborn home visiting program in the country and participated in the development of the program, translation of its evaluation, and use of data in policy and practice.
She serves as a mentor and coach in a range of professional and academic roles, and it is one of her greatest joys. She's been a service provider in child care, family support, clinical, and museum settings. Past board contributions include service on the Greater Boston Evaluation Network Advisory Board, the National Evaluation Advisory Board for After-School All-Stars, and with the Somerville Community Growing Center. She is an Associate Editor to the Journal of Youth Development, and her publications span the areas of psychology, epidemiology, and social policy.
Gretchen earned her undergraduate degrees in Psychology and History from Carnegie Mellon University, a Ph.D. in Applied Child Development from Tufts University, and she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Psychology at Örebro University in Sweden.
Before starting her consulting business, Bee's Knees Consulting LLC, Gretchen served as the Vice President of Evaluation at City Year Headquarters, overseeing their national evaluation work across nearly 300 schools, reaching more than 150,000 students annually. At City Year, Gretchen built a research program and portfolio of evidence for a new City Year service model and empowered staff and AmeriCorps members with data and related insights. She provided consultation to City Year leaders and evaluation staff in 26 cities in the U.S., as well as affiliates in the UK and South Africa. She engaged a wide range of stakeholders in using data and developing systems for organizational learning, progress monitoring, performance measurement, and reporting. Her team led the design of City Year's internal evaluation instruments and studies, approaches to analyzing data, and tools to help field staff collect data and use it. Gretchen also coordinated City Year's external evaluation studies, identifying and partnering with third party researchers.
Before joining City Year, Gretchen was a Research Assistant Professor for the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For five years, she served as the Research and Policy Coordinator at the Children's Trust, a leading family support nonprofit created by the Massachusetts legislature to prevent child abuse and neglect. In this role, she helped successfully advocate for the establishment of the largest, statewide newborn home visiting program in the country and participated in the development of the program, translation of its evaluation, and use of data in policy and practice.
She serves as a mentor and coach in a range of professional and academic roles, and it is one of her greatest joys. She's been a service provider in child care, family support, clinical, and museum settings. Past board contributions include service on the Greater Boston Evaluation Network Advisory Board, the National Evaluation Advisory Board for After-School All-Stars, and with the Somerville Community Growing Center. She is an Associate Editor to the Journal of Youth Development, and her publications span the areas of psychology, epidemiology, and social policy.
Gretchen earned her undergraduate degrees in Psychology and History from Carnegie Mellon University, a Ph.D. in Applied Child Development from Tufts University, and she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Psychology at Örebro University in Sweden.