Lauren Rich is a Senior Researcher at Chapin Hall. She is primarily interested in the family and school contexts of children living in poverty, and the ways in which these contexts relate to school readiness and elementary/middle school achievement among such children. She is currently working on an evaluation of an initiative designed to bring schools and community-based agencies together to offer extracurricular activities, health and social supports to students and families in Chicago. She is also working on a longitudinal study of patterns of service utilization among low-income families, and examining the relationship of service use to family functioning, child development, and school readiness. Previously she completed a five-year project examining outcomes among disadvantaged children and youth attending residential schools.

Prior to joining Chapin Hall, Dr. Rich was an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught courses in the economics of social welfare, social policy analysis, and community economic development. She also conducted and published research on youth employment, teen childbearing, welfare reform, child support enforcement, the educational attainment of teen mothers, and the economic status of low-income, noncustodial fathers. She has also been a research affiliate of the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, a longitudinal study of unmarried parents and their children based at Princeton and Columbia universities. Dr. Rich holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, a Master’s degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and Bachelor’s degrees in Systems Engineering and Economics, also from the University of Pennsylvania.