Strassberger is a mixed-methods researcher whose expertise includes qualitative methods, large-scale data collection efforts, and implementation research. Her work focuses on two-generation programs and supports for families with young children, including Head Start and home visiting programs, as well as service coordination and collaboration, early childhood education, and supplemental instruction for K-12 students. Strassberger plans and executes qualitative and mixed-methods implementation studies—designing and fielding surveys, developing protocols, leading teams to conduct site visits, interviewing participants, analyzing data, and writing up findings for dissemination. She also plans and directs large-scale data collection efforts for MDRC’s randomized controlled trials, working with teams to design and select measures, leading training sessions for data collectors, and monitoring the collection of multiple types of data (surveys, classroom observations, parental consent forms, and child assessments). Current projects include Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce (SAS-HV), Measures for Early Success, the Scaling High-Quality Pre-K in DC implementation study, the Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI), Head Start Connects, and the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE).
Before joining MDRC, Strassberger worked in the global public health research field at organizations including Helen Keller International in Indonesia, where she used ethnographic methods to evaluate a program that increases access to education for children with disabilities, and at Mathematica Policy Research, where she contributed to projects with policy implications in the international, health, and early childhood fields. Strassberger holds a master’s degree in public health from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with a concentration in sociomedical sciences and global health, and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Emory University.
