Strassberger joined MDRC in 2013 and works in two roles: implementation researcher and data collection manager. As an implementation researcher, she plans and executes qualitative implementation studies—designing protocols, conducting site visits, interviewing participants, and analyzing data. Current projects include Head Start Connects, Understanding Poverty, and the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE). As a data collection manager, she plans and directs large-scale data collection efforts for MDRC’s randomized controlled trials, working with teams to design and select measures, leading data collector training sessions, and monitoring the collection of multiple types of data (surveys, classroom observations, parental consent forms, and child assessments). Current projects include the Expanding Children’s Early Learning Network study and the Variations in Implementation of Quality Interventions (VIQI) study.
Before joining MDRC, Strassberger worked at Mathematica Policy Research on projects with policy implications in the international, health, early childhood, and disability fields. While in graduate school, she worked in Indonesia at Helen Keller International, using ethnography to review a program that increases access to education for children with disabilities. Strassberger holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, with a concentration on sociomedical sciences and global health, and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Emory University.
