Jill Y. Gandhi

Jill Gandhi is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy. Her research focuses on the role of early childhood care and education in children’s developmental outcomes and families’ well-being. Her work emphasizes the experiences of low-income families with the goal of informing child and family policies aimed at improving children’s developmental outcomes. In her current role, she primarily works with the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker, a longitudinal study of NYC families with young children that explores children’s health and development, early education and care arrangements, and the families’ experiences of poverty and hardship. In May 2021, Jill received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. As part of her doctoral training, she was a fellow in the Institute of Education Sciences Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training (IES-PIRT) program. She was also a recipient of a Dissertation Grant from the American Education Research Association (AERA-NSF) Grants Program.

Research Interests

Adolescents and Youth
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Child Policy
Children
Early Interventions or Prenatal to Age Three Interventions
Education/Schools
Family
Family Policy
Human Capital and Children
Income-Based Interventions
Inequality/Disparity
Neighborhoods
Poverty
Social Policy
Universal Pre-K Programs

Datasets

Administrative Data (State or National)
Early Childhood Poverty Tracker Data
ECLS-B, ECLS-K (Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies Program) or other Institute of Education Sciences Data
National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE)
NYC Administrative Data
Poverty Tracker Data