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Julie Kubelka

Pronouns: She/Her

Julie is an experienced evaluator of programs and initiatives that focus on the well-being of children, families, and communities.

Julie is a research scientist at NORC, with a decade of experience evaluating programs and systems change initiatives in the areas of early care and education, child well-being, and safety and justice. She guides project work with her expertise in leading qualitative interviews and site visits, developing and conducting surveys, and directing qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

Julie has conducted research and evaluation work for federal offices including the Office of Head Start, the Office of Childcare, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the National Science Foundation. She has also co-led systems change evaluations for nonprofit organizations and major foundations, such as the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

Julie currently co-leads the implementation, outcome, and impact evaluation of Social Current’s Texas Change in Mind Learning Collaborative, working with 10 nonprofit organizations, who work with children and families to embed brain science and racial equity principles into their organizations and community networks. Julie also manages the implementation and outcome evaluation of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, working to reduce racial and ethnic disparities and jail overuse in 26 local justice systems across the country. 

While working on her master’s degree, Julie was a research assistant at the Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to that, Julie taught high school geometry in Dallas, Texas.

Project Contributions

MacArthur Safety & Justice Challenge Evaluation

Evaluation of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge to reduce jail populations across the U.S.

Client:

MacArthur Foundation

Catalytic Communities Initiative Evaluation

Assessing strategies to transform educational communities to benefit K-12 students

Client:

Walton Family Foundation

Data Protection Toolkit Use Case Analysis

Using qualitative methods to evaluate the Data Protection Toolkit’s usefulness and identify possible improvements

Client:

National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics