Appendix C

Committee and Staff Biosketches

COMMITTEE BIOSKETCHES

DEBORAH A. MORONEY (Chair) is vice president at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), where she leads AIR’s work in the area of Youth, Family, and Community Development. She is a methodological expert in implementation science—in the context of both rigorous research and program evaluation. Moroney serves as a reviewer or editorial board member on multiple peer-reviewed journals and has authored practitioner and organizational guides using both research findings and practitioner input. She co-authored the fourth edition of the seminal resource Beyond the Bell: A Toolkit for Creating Effective Afterschool and Expanded Learning Programs. Moroney has authored numerous works on the implementation and assessment of social and emotional development, including the first edition of the Ready to Assess toolkit, and co-chaired the social and emotional learning National Practitioner Advisory Group. She has also edited two volumes: Creating Safe, Equitable, Engaging Schools: A Comprehensive, Evidence-Based Approach to Supporting Students, and Social and Emotional Learning in Out-of-School Time: Foundations and Futures. At AIR, Moroney has been a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on several large studies of youth development organizations. She has served on the advisory boards of several organizations, including YMCA of the USA, BellXcel, and Information Age Publishing. Moroney is also a long-standing member of the C.S. Mott Foundation Afterschool Technical Assistance Collaborative serving the 50 State Afterschool Network. Prior to joining AIR, she was a clinical faculty member in educational psychology at the University of

Illinois at Chicago in the Youth Development Graduate Program. She has served on a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee on Summertime Experiences and Child and Adolescent Education, Health, and Safety; Moroney also contributed a keynote paper to a National Academies workshop on character development. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Ed. from The University of Illinois at Chicago.

THOMAS AKIVA is associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education and director of the schoolwide Ed.D. program. His research focuses on understanding and improving out-of-school learning program experiences for children and youth. Akiva’s team increasingly focuses on citywide approaches and, in 2022, he co-edited the book It Takes an Ecosystem: Understanding the People, Places, and Possibilities of Learning and Development Across Settings. He publishes research about equity in out-of-school learning, continuous improvement and professional learning, youth program features, and social and emotional skills. Akiva received the Scholar Award in 2016 from the out-of-school-time special interest group of the American Educational Research Association. He received his Ph.D. in 2012 in education and psychology from the University of Michigan.

JULIE A. BALDWIN is regents’ professor in the Department of Health Sciences and director of the Center for Health Equity Research at Northern Arizona University. She served as a tenured faculty member at Northern Arizona University before joining the faculty at the University of South Florida College of Public Health in the Department of Community and Family Health; following this, Baldwin returned to Northern Arizona University to be the founding director of the Center for Health Equity Research. Her research over the years has focused on both infectious and chronic disease prevention, and she has had a consistent program of applied research addressing HIV/AIDS and substance abuse prevention in youth, with special emphasis on working with Native American youth and their families. Baldwin is also the principal investigator of the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative, a U54 National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities–funded research center for minority institutions. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, she has made a lifelong commitment to serving diverse communities and to advocating for health promotion programs for children, adolescents, and families. Baldwin was recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine and was previously a member of the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice and the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She earned her doctorate in behavioral sciences and health education from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

HORATIO BLACKMAN is vice president for education policy, advocacy, and engagement at the National Urban League. He joined the League after serving as assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development and a research associate with the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy at the University of Delaware. Blackman’s work has focused on educational improvement, access, and opportunity for Black and other marginalized communities. He utilizes expertise in qualitative and mixed-methods research, community-based research, and translating research to policy and practice to support change efforts at the local, state, and national levels. Blackman is a member of the American Educational Research Association. He also serves as a board member for the Current Issues in Out-of-School Time book series publication. Blackman earned his B.S. in policy analysis and management, his M.S.Ed. in educational theory and policy, and his Ph.D. in education policy from The University of Pennsylvania, where he was also an Institute of Educational Sciences predoctoral fellow.

DALTON CONLEY is Henry Putnam University Professor in Sociology and a faculty affiliate at the Office of Population Research and the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton Universtity. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and he serves in a pro bono capacity as dean of health sciences for the University of the People, a tuition-free, accredited, online college committed to expanding access to higher education. Conley’s scholarship has primarily dealt with the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic and health status from parents to children. This focus has led him to study (among other topics) the impact of parental wealth in explaining racial attainment gaps; the causal impact of birthweight (as a heuristic for the literal overlap of the generations) on later health and educational outcomes; sibling differences that appear to reflect the triumph of achievement over ascription (but which may, in fact, merely reflect within-family stratification processes); and, finally, genetics as a driver of both social mobility and reproduction. His books include Being Black, Living in the Red; The Starting Gate; Honky; The Pecking Order; You May Ask Yourself; Elsewhere, USA; Parentology; and The Genome Factor. Conley has been the recipient of Guggenheim, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Russell Sage Foundation fellowships as well as a CAREER Award and the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Conley earned an M.P.A. in public policy and a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in biology from New York University.

RYAN J. GAGNON is assistant professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management at Clemson University, where he teaches undergraduate courses in recreation program administration, program design, and evaluation and graduate courses in both applied and advanced statistical analyses. His research focuses on the factors that inhibit or promote out-of-school-time program success; methodological innovation in sport, recreation, and youth program assessment; the development of evaluation capacity in programs that serve marginalized and/or underrepresented youth; youth with disabilities and/or chronic illness, and youth thriving. In these areas, Gagnon focuses on the implementation of innovative statistical and methodological approaches (e.g., planned missing data designs, confirmatory factor analyses, structural equation modeling, geospatial data analyses) to tell the often-complex story of the programs and people served by out-of-school-time programs. While he has a heavy focus on the use of contemporary statistical techniques, his parallel focus is on the translation of findings to ensure they are useful to practitioners and the communities they serve. Prior to joining the faculty at Clemson, Gagnon worked in outdoor education programs at Washington State University serving youth and young adults and with the U.S. Air Force Youth and Teen Programs division.

SUSANNA LOEB is professor of education at Stanford University and director of National Student Support Accelerator, which aims to expand access to relationship-based, high-impact tutoring. Before her recent move back to Stanford, Loeb was director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and professor of education and of international and public affairs at Brown University. Her research focuses broadly on education policy and its role in improving educational opportunities for students. Loeb’s work has addressed educator career choices and professional development, school finance and governance, and early childhood systems. She was founding director of the Center for Education Policy at Stanford and co-director of Policy Analysis for California Education. Loeb led the research for both Getting Down to Facts projects for California schools. She is also an affiliate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and she is a member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

HELEN J. MALONE is the chief strategy and innovation officer at the Institute for Educational Leadership. She is Advisory Board Co-Chair for the Global Extended Learning and Youth Development Association, and is also the series editor for the Information Age Publishing’s book series, Current Issues in Out-of-School Time. She is also a part of the 2024 cohort of the American Express Leadership Academy. Dr. Malone brings over two decades of experience focused on out-of-school-time

learning, school–family–community partnerships, and education system change. She is a founding member of the AERA Out-of-School Time Special Interest Group (SIG) and one of its former chairs. She has chaired two other SIGs and remains a long-standing AERA member. Her service includes multiple posts as a peer reviewer and editorial board member for various journals and academic publishers. Dr. Malone has served as an advisor on research studies, and as a thought partner to nonprofits, philanthropy, and government entities. Dr. Malone holds a doctorate degree from Harvard University.

FE MONCLOA is emerita at the University of California, Cooperative Extension. Her research and extension expertise is on intercultural communication, culturally relevant social justice youth development, and access to high-quality youth-serving organizations for marginalized youth, families, and communities. She is a 2022–2024 research fellow at the Western Center for Metropolitan Extension and Research at Washington State University.

JENNIFER M. RINEHART is senior vice president for strategy and programs at the Afterschool Alliance. She takes a primary role in the organization’s coalition-building, policy, and research efforts. Rinehart oversees major initiatives, including the Afterschool for All Challenge, an annual afterschool advocacy day, and she works closely with the vice presidents of policy and research on the overall policy and research strategies, including the landmark survey America After 3PM. In addition, Rinehart provides technical assistance and support to the statewide afterschool networks to help them use research to advance their goals. Prior to joining the Afterschool Alliance, she served for more than 5 years on the staff of the U.S. Department of Education, primarily as a project officer for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, the principal federal program supporting out-of-school-time programs. Rinehart works closely with several national organizations and initiatives that share the Afterschool Alliance’s vision of afterschool for all. She has a B.A. in psychology with a minor in elementary education from Gettysburg College and a M.Ed. in human development from the University of Maryland at College Park.

GERARD ROBINSON is professor of practice at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His areas of expertise are K–12 education, higher education, afterschool programs, criminal justice reform, race in American institutions, and the role of nonprofit organizations in civil society. Robinson’s scholarship includes two coedited books: Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons and Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice, as well as an essay about prisons and education published in the University of

Virginia Law Review and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law & Social Change. Robinson earned his A.A. from El Camino Community College, B.A. from Howard University, and M.Ed. from Harvard University.

SANDRA SIMPKINS is professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, and director of the Center for Afterschool and Summer Excellence, which has a certificate program that trains undergraduates to work in out-of-school-time (OST) programs. Over the past 20 years, Simpkins has addressed several key issues in a variety of OST settings (e.g., programs, extracurricular activities, unsupervised time), including promoting diversity, barriers to participation, youth motivational processes, and program impacts. She has been one of the leading voices on diversity and equity in OST. Simpkins has led an interdisciplinary team to create a framework for culturally responsive programs. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, she has examined how various social position factors, including race, ethnicity, immigration status, and socioeconomic status, interact to affect youth’s OST experiences. Simpkins has served as an advisor to several national OST organizations (e.g., American Camp Association, Girls Inc.) on their programming related to diversity and equity and has collaborated with local programs serving low-income families. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. Simpkins has received several accolades for her work, including the William T. Grant Foundation Young Scholar award and the Mavis Hetherington Award for Excellence in Applied Developmental Science.

EMILIE P. SMITH is professor of human development and family studies and inaugural College of Social Science distinguished senior scholar at Michigan State University. With training in ecological approaches and prevention science, Smith has been funded to conduct multilevel, multimethod cluster randomized trials to strengthen youth-serving afterschool programs. Her work at the local and national levels has demonstrated effective approaches to engaging often lower-income ethnic minority families in prevention research using group-based family and community culturally informed approaches. Smith’s work on racial/ethnic identity and socialization among marginalized youth and social justice approaches to positive youth development is highly cited in the field. She has received millions of dollars in national and foundation funding for her research. Smith is currently on the elected governing council of the Society for Research on Child Development. She is a fellow of division 27 (on community) of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Prevention Research. Smith is editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Community Psychology.

NATASHA STRASSFELD is associate professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines (1) the ways in which caregivers, particularly minoritized, racialized, and low-socioeconomic-status caregivers, navigate special education and accommodations processes via legal and policy mechanisms; (2) racial/ethnic disparities in how students are (mis)identified for special education placements and related services; and (3) special education and related transition service delivery for youth transitioning from the juvenile justice system back to K–12 public school contexts. Strassfeld’s work has appeared in leading education journals, including the Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Exceptional Children, Behavioral Disorders, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and AERA Open. Her work has been supported by a range of federal and foundation grant sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition, Strassfeld served as a committee member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2022. She obtained her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Law and her Ph.D. in special education from The Pennsylvania State University.

MAYUMI A. WILLGERODT is endowed professor at the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing and interim director of the UW Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research, and Practice. Her career has improved the health and educational success of vulnerable youth through school health policy, research, and practice. Willgerodt’s research on school health workforce capacity has strengthened the contributions of nurses and interprofessional school health teams. Her landmark national studies of the school nurse workforce have impacted policy and practice, serving as a model for other school health workforce studies. Willgerodt’s research is informed by extensive experience with communities, resulting in an emphasis on interprofessional care coordination and maximizing community systems of care efficiencies. She has been recognized as Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar, fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and National Academy of School Nurses, and UW Distinguished Nurse Researcher. Willgerodt earned her B.S.N. from Georgetown University and her M.P.H./M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Chicago. She recently co-chaired Sharing and Exchanging Ideas and Global Experiences on Community-Engaged Approaches to Oral Health: A Workshop of the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

STAFF BIOSKETCHES

EMILY BACKES is deputy board director for the Committee on Law and Justice and Board on Children, Youth, and Families in the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She also serves as director of the Societal Experts Action Network, a network of leading individuals and institutions in social science fields that provides actionable responses to urgent policy questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In her time at the National Academies, Backes has served as study director for the reports Decarcerating Correctional Facilities during COVID-19: Advancing Health, Equity, and Safety; The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth; Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice; and Transforming the Financing of Early Care and Education. She has also provided analytical and editorial assistance to National Academies projects on juvenile justice reform, policing, forensic science, illicit markets, science literacy, science communication, and science and human rights. Backes received an M.A. and B.A. in history from the University of Missouri, specializing in U.S. human rights policy and international law, and a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia, where she represented clients as a student attorney with the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic and the Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic.

NATACHA BLAIN serves as senior board director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families and the Committee on Law and Justice at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She has served as a supreme court fellow and chief counsel to senator Dick Durbin on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as lead strategic advisor for the Children’s Defense Fund’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline campaign. Prior to joining the National Academies, Blain served as associate director/acting executive director of Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families. There she played a critical role in helping convene and engage diverse constituencies, fostering leadership, collaboration, and innovation-sharing through a network of funders committed to the enduring well-being of children, youth, and families. Blain earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Allegheny University of Health Sciences and MCP Hahnemann University (now Drexel University), respectively, and she received a J.D. from Villanova School of Law.

REBEKAH HUTTON is senior program officer for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is currently the study director of the Committee on Exploring the Opportunity Gap for Young Children from Birth to Age Eight and the Committee on Addressing the

Underrepresentation of Women of Color in Tech. Hutton was previously the study director of the Committee on Summertime Experiences and Child and Adolescent Education, Health, and Safety. Prior to joining the National Academies, she was an education management and information technology consultant working on projects in the United States as well as Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, and Djibouti. Hutton has also worked as a program manager and researcher at the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, studying whether teacher pay for performance has measurable impact on student outcomes, and as an English-language lecturer in Tourcoing, France. During her time with the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, she has worked on projects focused on fostering the educational success of children and youth learning English; reducing child poverty; and promoting the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth. She received her M.Ed. degree from Vanderbilt University in international education policy and management.

ELONAY KEFLEZGHI is senior program assistant with the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She currently supports the Committee on Out-of-School Time Settings and the Committee on an Independent Analysis of the Comprehensive Autism Care Demonstration program. Keflezghi’s areas of interest include health policy, maternal–child health, and international health. She received her B.S. from Towson University in health education and promotion.

PRIYANKA NALAMADA (study director) is program officer at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She primarily supports the work of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families within the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Nalamada’s work involves providing critical project management support for National Academies activities, including consensus studies and convenings focused on the health and well-being of children and families. She currently directs the consensus study Promoting Learning and Development in K-12 Out-of-School Time Settings for Low Income and Marginalized Children and Youth and supports the cross-divisional Standing Committee on Reproductive Health, Equity, and Society. Most recently, Nalamada staffed the Committee on Policies and Programs to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty and served as acting director for the Forum for Children’s Well-Being. She previously worked for a number of years in the Health and Medicine and the Policy and Global Affairs divisions of the National Academies, developing and supporting activities for the Board on Global Health and the Board on Higher Education and Workforce, including the Committee on Defense Research at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Other Minority Institutions; Minority

Serving Institutions: America’s Underutilized Resource for Strengthening the STEM Workforce; and the Forum on Public–Private Partnerships for Global Health and Safety. Nalamada holds a B.A. in political science from Bryn Mawr College.

MAYA REDDI is research associate with the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She currently supports the Committee on Promoting Learning and Development in K-12 Out-of-School Time Settings for Low Income and Marginalized Children and Youth and the Committee on Federal Policy Impacts on Child Poverty. Reddi’s areas of interest include mental health and well-being, reproductive health, and child development. She received her B.B.A. in marketing with a minor in digital media from The University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in psychology from American University.

MEREDITH YOUNG is a program officer on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In her time at the National Academies, she has supported projects evaluating dietary reference intakes, federal feeding guidelines, obesity prevention and treatment initiatives, preschool curriculum, and the racial and economic opportunity gap in child outcomes. Young has supported evaluation and strategic planning efforts at the National Academies, and she serves as a volunteer staff reader for other divisions. She received a B.S. in human nutrition, foods, and exercise with a concentration in dietetics from Virginia Tech and an M.N.S.P. in nutrition science and policy from Tufts University.