JAMES RICCIO, MDRC (practitioner)
Over my 28 years in the world of policy evaluation, I have watched APPAM evolve into an influential voice for getting policymakers to pay more attention to high-quality evidence. It has done so, in part, by valuing different traditions of policy analysis and management, fostering a dialogue between researchers and practitioners, and promoting rigor. Since joining APPAM, I’ve hardly ever missed a Fall Conference, and I have never attended one in which I had not learned, been inspired, and been challenged (as well as had some fun). I would welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important institution as a Policy Council member. I received a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University and have spent most of my career at MDRC, a not-for-profit social science research firm in New York City. Currently, I am the director of MDRC’s Low-Wage Workers and Communities policy area. I lead a research team conducting a randomized trial of a large incentives-based (conditional cash transfer) anti-poverty program in New York City; head a US-UK research consortium evaluating an employment retention and advancement initiative in Britain (the largest randomized trial ever undertaken in that country); and advise on numerous evaluations of community change, financial work supports, and other employment advancement strategies. Recently, I directed a nine-year, six-city evaluation of an employment initiative in public housing (Jobs-Plus), and previously I studied welfare reform in Britain as an Atlantic Fellow in Public Policy. I also spent many years helping to conduct welfare-to-work experiments in various states. I have been deeply involved with the many different sides of the evaluation enterprise, conducting or contributing to implementation, impact, and benefit-cost analyses. I attach great value to understanding how to implement effective strategies well (and the role of management in that process), and to mixing experimental, non-experimental, and qualitative methods to produce deeper insights into program performance. I also have a strong interest in fostering broader international involvement in APPAM as a way of enriching policy development and policy evaluation in the U.S. and of promoting evidence-based policymaking in other countries. This has been a particularly important element of my work in the UK (from where I have also recruited a fair number of new APPAM members). All of these experiences would guide my contributions as a Policy Council member, and I would look forward to the chance to serve.