Leah Childress, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Leah Childress has more than 15 years of experience in program evaluation, applied social science research, and evaluation technical assistance in diverse content areas, including education, early childhood, and maternal and child health. Her areas of technical expertise include quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, data collection and analysis, program evaluation, and technical assistance in evaluation and applied research.
Childress currently works on several projects with a home visiting focus. She conducts interviews and qualitative data analysis for the Family-Level Assessment and State of Home Visiting Outreach and Recruitment Study. As part of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Technical Assistance Resource Center, she performs systematic literature reviews and supports awardees as they pursue coordinated evaluation studies. She also provides technical assistance to counties through the California Home Visiting Coordination project and conducts environmental scans of strategies, resources, and tools as part of the Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce Project.
Before joining JBA, Childress worked on evaluations of programs serving individuals from infancy to adulthood. She also served as the quantitative lead for several federally funded grant projects. She received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan.