Emily Maxfield is a research scientist in Child Trends’ early childhood education program area. Her work is dedicated to advancing child care access, family well-being, and social mobility through data-driven policy analysis.  

Emily specializes in quantitative research using secondary and administrative data, with a focus on evaluating the impact of child care policies, and particularly the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) requirements. Her expertise includes applying causal methods—such as difference-in-differences, interrupted time series, and propensity score matching—to assess policy and program effectiveness. She also prioritizes ethical data governance and bias-aware data management in her work.  

Emily has collaborated with federal, state, and foundation partners, and leads research teams on projects that inform child care policy. Her current work focuses on developing innovative strategies to identify and map underserved child care areas, tracking child care market shifts over time, and examining how families make child care decisions. She also serves as co-principal investigator on a project leveraging the National Survey of Early Care and Education to evaluate how CCDF policy requirements affect child care access for families with children with disabilities. Emily is also developing a line of work to investigate how business investments and public-private partnerships can support child care access and economic well-being. Her research has contributed to both national and state-level policy discussions, shaping efforts to create strong child care systems that support the well-being of children and families. Prior to Child Trends, Emily supervised an inclusive before-and-after-school child care program.