Rebecca Maynard

Rebecca Maynard is Professor Emerita of Education and Social Policy at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. She is a leading expert in the design and conduct of randomized controlled trials and rapid-cycle evaluations that generate actionable, equitable evidence to inform programs, policies and practices. She has conducted influential methodological research, including co-developing tools for optimizing sample designs, estimating statistical power for impact and cost-effectiveness evaluations, refining methods for estimating steady-state benefits and costs of social policies and programs, and advancing principles for and the practice of open science from pre-registration through data sharing and systematic reviewing and synthesis of evidence.

During her time on the UPenn faculty, she did two tours in the Federal Government. First,  she worked with the Clinton Administration’s Welfare Reform team analyzing the costs and benefits of various child care reform options.  Then from 2010–12, she served as Commissioner of the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance at the Institute of Education Sciences, where she oversaw the Institute’s evaluation initiatives, the What Works Clearinghouse, the Regional Education Laboratories, and the National Library of Education. Prior to joining the UPenn faculty in 1993, she was Senior Vice President for Research at Mathematica.

Throughout her career, she has served on numerous National Academy of Sciences panels, including the highly influential Panel on Child Care Policy and, most recently, the Panel on Evidence-based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response.  

She is a Fellow of the American Education Research Association, an elected member of the Society for Research Synthesis Methodology, and recipient of the Peter H. Rossi Award for Contributions to the Theory and Practice of Program Evaluation (2009) and the Society for Research on Adolescence Social Policy Best Book Award for Kids Having Kids (1998). She also is past President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.

Presently, she the Principal Investigator and co-Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s IES Predoctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Methods for Field-based Research in Education and she serves on advisory boards for the Forum for World Education and the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Public Policies at Sciences Po.