Michelle Ernst is a Senior Researcher with a background in child development and survey research. She has extensive experience collecting data on large-scale longitudinal projects such as the New Immigrant Survey and the Multi-Site Evaluation of Foster Youth Programs. In this capacity, she has also trained hundreds of interviewers on the collection of data from children using standardized instruments, serving as a consultant for the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979’s child data collection and developing and implementing the training for the child component of the New Immigrant Survey. Dr. Ernst is a co-PI on the Runaway and Homeless Youth Study, which involves qualitative interviews with youth who have run away from home or been thrown out of their home. This work is being completed in partnership with Michael Pergamit (The Urban Institute) and the National Runaway Switchboard. Dr. Ernst also works on a large-scale prospective longitudinal study of children and young people in out-of-home care where she is primarily involved in instrument design.

Dr. Ernst holds a Ph.D. from Loyola University of Chicago in Developmental Psychology and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Missouri.