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Diane Schilder
SHE/HER/HERS
Senior Fellow
Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population
  • Profile
  • Outside Affiliations
  • Throughout my career, I have studied how separate publicly funded programs are implemented in order to better understand how programs and policies can be combined to most effectively meet the needs of children, youth, and families. I’m excited to join a terrific team at the Urban Institute to deepen this important work.

    Diane Schilder is a senior fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute, with more than 30 years of research and evaluation experience leading research on child care, Head Start, prekindergarten, and home-visiting programs and policies. Her recent projects focus on the child care, Head Start, and prekindergarten workforces and the alignment of early childhood policies and programs to meet the needs of children and families.

    Schilder has served as a principal investigator for nearly 100 research and evaluation projects and has advised dozens of initiatives. In these roles, she applies her expertise in mixed-methods research study design, analyses of administrative data, and the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative research data to develop briefs, reports, and user-friendly guides. Before joining Urban, she served as a principal investigator of early childhood projects and as a senior technical assistance specialist with the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes. She was a senior policy analyst at the Harvard Family Research Project and a senior evaluator at the US Government Accountability Office.

    Schilder received a BA from the Ohio State University, an MA in education policy from the George Washington University, and an EdD from the George Washington University.

    Schilder provides evaluation consultation to Massachusetts Bay Community College, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

    Research Areas
    Children and youth
    Education
    Families
    Social safety net
    Race and equity
    Tags
    Kids in context
    Families with low incomes
    Racial barriers to accessing the safety net
    Racial equity in education


    Outside Affiliations
    Northeastern University
    Consultant
    University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Consultant
    MassBay Community College
    Consultant
    Body

    Urban experts are permitted and empowered to work and affiliate with outside organizations, whether serving on boards, volunteering their time, or providing advice and counsel. And Urban welcomes visiting scholars, nonresident or affiliated fellows who work for other organizations. These outside affiliations enrich our perspectives and our learning environment. We also require all paid and unpaid experts to disclose their affiliations to Urban leadership and follow rules governing their engagement to ensure transparency for audiences and independence of experts.