Director, Family Economic Security
Associate Director, NCCP
Karen Chatfield’s research has focused on children’s outcomes across all dimensions and on the ways in which U.S. social programs and policies support early development in low-income families and communities. At NCCP, she has supported child and family advocates and state government agencies with research and analysis of policies that support family economic security, including those designed to alleviate material hardships and to boost economic mobility. She has also participated in research on benefit cliffs and effective marginal tax rates as they vary across geographic areas and for different types of families.
Before joining NCCP, Karen worked at the Educational Alliance, where she has served as Principal Investigator on the Settlement House American Research Plan (SHARP) Impact Study, a mixed-method investigation of social program receipt, community supports, and material hardship among NYC settlement house participants and staff both during and after the pandemic.
Karen received her PhD at Columbia University’s School of Social Work and earned an MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences, also at Columbia.