Lauren Akers

I am a 2007 Davidson graduate with a passion for early childhood education, rigorous and human-centered program evaluation, and bridging research to practice.

Since 2010, I’ve been an early childhood researcher and program evaluator with Mathematica, a public policy research firm. There, my work focuses on a variety of early childhood policies and programs, particularly home visiting. For example, I serve as co-principal investigator for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness (HomVEE) review, which identifies evidence-based early childhood home visiting models: homvee.acf.gov. 

I particularly enjoy conducting community-engaged formative evaluations, where I use human-centered design practices to help early childhood organizations partner with their community members to design and improve programs. I also serve as a reviewer for the Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 

I married a fellow Davidson grad (Trey Akers, ’06) who works for the Town of Davidson’s planning department. You can find us biking around town with our two kids, Avery and Cade.