MDRC is pleased to announce that Rashmita Mistry has joined its Board of Directors.

Rashmita Mistry is a professor of education at UCLA and the inaugural vice chair of the department’s undergraduate programs in education and social transformation. A developmental psychologist, Mistry’s research focuses on children’s social identity development, conceptions and reasoning about social and economic inequalities, and socialization processes. She served as a member of the Society for Research in Child Development’s Governing Council (2017-2023), co-chairing SRCD’s 2023 biennial meeting, and serving as a special associate editor for SRCD’s leading journal, Child Development.

Mistry partnered with MDRC on the Understanding Poverty: Children and Family Experiences Project, using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with children and adolescents ages 7 to 17 and their parents/guardians to inform ways in which social safety net programs can better serve families living in poverty.  

Mistry completed her doctorate in Human Development and Family Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999 and received postdoctoral training at the Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.

“We are delighted to welcome Rashmita to the MDRC Board of Directors,” said Bridget Terry Long, Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and MDRC Board Chair. “She brings expertise in both substantive and methodological areas that are critical to MDRC’s work, including children's experiences of poverty, the experiences of immigrant families, and qualitative research methods. It is also wonderful that as a past partner of MDRC, Rashmita is already familiar with the potential this organization has to address critical issues related to social policy.”

“I am honored to join MDRC's Board of Directors,” said Rashmita Mistry. “This feels like a full-circle moment: my first interactions with MDRC were as a graduate student research assistant on the New Hope Project Evaluation, an experience that instrumentally shaped my career and scholarship. I look forward to working with everyone to continue MDRC’s strong tradition of conducting rigorous, evidence-based policy research, especially as it affects families and children.”