CAROL EMIG

President
M.P.P., John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
B.A., International Relations, Georgetown University
Ms. Emig leads a growing organization of more than 75 skilled professionals who work extensively in early childhood; youth development; teen childbearing and related reproductive health issues; education; child welfare (foster care and adoption); parenting and family structure issues, including marriage and fatherhood; child poverty; and the transition to adulthood. 

Under Ms. Emig’s leadership, Child Trends began or significantly expanded its child welfare research, its capacity to communicate research effectively to local, state, and federal policy makers, and its outreach and interaction with programs that provide direct services to children, youth, and families.  In particular, Child Trends works extensively with decision makers to use data effectively, to incorporate evidence-based practices into their programs and policies, to evaluate their effectiveness in improving outcomes for children, and to use all of this information to target, refine or expand their efforts to help vulnerable children and youth.

Before returning to Child Trends as President in September 2006, Ms. Emig was Executive Director of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care from 2002-2006, where she planned and directed all aspects of the work of this blue-ribbon panel.  Many of the Pew Commission’s recommendations have been enacted by Congress, state agencies, and state Supreme Courts.  Prior to this, she was Vice President for External Relations at Child Trends, where she built the organization’s public policy communications department.

Ms. Emig’s other professional experiences include Deputy Director of the National Commission on Children, a bipartisan Congressional-Presidential panel; Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy; director of a state children’s advocacy organization; and, early in her career, research assistant to First Lady Rosalynn Carter.