MDRC President Gordon Berlin announced that Virginia Knox and Dan Bloom have been named Vice Presidents and Co-Directors of MDRC’s Policy Research and Evaluation Division, within which all of MDRC’s policy areas are housed. In addition, Kate Gualtieri has been named Director of Strategy.

“On behalf of the MDRC Board of Directors, I am very pleased that Ginger, Dan, and Kate — all long-time leaders of our organization — have agreed to take on these important new roles,” said Berlin.

Virginia Knox, who has a doctorate in public policy from Harvard, joined MDRC in 1994. She currently leads the Family Well-Being and Children’s Development Policy Area, which includes MDRC’s research on early childhood home visiting; family strengthening initiatives, such as parenting and fatherhood programs; and early care and education. She is particularly interested in designing new approaches to implementation research that will inform the expansion of effective programs. Prior to joining MDRC, she was with New York City’s Human Resources Administration, where her responsibilities included estimating the costs and effects of new citywide welfare-reform programs.

Dan Bloom directs the Youth Development, Criminal Justice, and Employment Policy Area, which houses MDRC’s research on reforms in the justice and child support systems, as well as studies of employment programs for groups seeking to gain a foothold in the labor market, including former prisoners, disconnected young adults, low-income fathers, welfare recipients, individuals with disabilities, and others. He originally joined MDRC in 1988 and holds a master’s in public policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard. Bloom has also worked for America Works and for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Kate Gualtieri, who joined MDRC in 1995, has been named Director of Strategy. In this role, she oversees strategic initiatives dedicated to strengthening MDRC’s contributions to evidence-based policy and practice. She also plays an organization-wide role in quality assurance and risk management, staff deployment, development of systems and tools to support and improve project management, and guidance and training for project directors across MDRC. Gualtieri has also worked as an ethnographer for Public/Private Ventures’ Fathers at Work evaluation, taught courses in NYU’s sociology department, and served as a co-principal investigator on the Baltimore Parenthood Study.