Child Trends Grows with Two New Senior Staff

Washington, DC – Child Trends is pleased to welcome Hope Cooper as Vice President for Public Policy and Timothy Ross, Ph.D., as Senior Program Area Director for Child Welfare. 

 

Prior to joining Child Trends, Ms. Cooper was a Senior Program Officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts, directing the Trusts’ work related to foster care.  Previously, she had a long career on Capitol Hill, where she held several positions for Sen. Charles Grassley.  As senior policy advisor to the Senate Finance Committee, Ms. Cooper worked on a wide range of issues affecting children, including the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, TANF, and children with special needs.

 

Dr. Ross comes to Child Trends from the Vera Institute of Justice, where he was the Director of the Child Welfare, Health, and Justice Program, and, before that, Director of Research.  He led Vera’s child welfare research projects, including issues related to the enrollment and monitoring of foster children in HIV/AIDS clinical trials; the overlap between child welfare and juvenile justice; the prevalence of children in foster care whose parents are incarcerated; and how the police and child protective workers coordinate responses to allegations of severe maltreatment.  He is also the author of the forthcoming book, Child Welfare: The Challenges of Collaboration.

 

Rob Geen had previously held the positions of Vice President for Public Policy and Senior Program Area Director for Child Welfare.  He left Child Trends at the end of January to become a Senior Fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation.  Under Geen’s direction, child welfare research at Child Trends grew to become one of the larger areas at Child Trends.  He also worked closely with Carol Emig, Child Trends’ President, to grow the organization’s efforts to communicate nonpartisan research to policy makers and practitioners.

 

“Rob Geen made enormous contributions to Child Trends, and we will miss his intellectual leadership, collegiality, and passion for improving the lives of disadvantaged children,” said Carol Emig.  “At the same time, we are thrilled to welcome Hope Cooper and Tim Ross.  They come to Child Trends with stellar reputations in their fields, and we look forward to working with them.”

 

Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at all stages of development. Its mission is to improve outcomes for children by providing research, data, and analysis to the people and institutions whose decisions and actions affect children.