MDRC Senior Vice President Dan Bloom has been named an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The sole federally funded national poverty research center in the United States, IRP is a nonpartisan research institution dedicated to producing and disseminating rigorous evidence to inform policies and programs to combat poverty, inequality, and their effects. Created in 1966, IRP: 

• builds, supports, and develops a large and collaborative core of poverty scholars from multiple disciplines;
• produces and promotes rigorous, diverse, and interdisciplinary poverty research;
• facilitates wide-ranging linkages to the policy and practice world; and
• distills, translates, and widely disseminates applied poverty and policy research.

“I'm thrilled and honored to be named an IRP affiliate,” said Bloom. “IRP has long been a leader in using research to shine a light on deep inequities in our society and to develop and advocate for policies and programs that improve the lives of marginalized families.”