Kathleen Dwyer

Kathleen Dwyer is a Senior Social Science Research Analyst in the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF’s) Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE). Her research interests include attachment, parenting, parent well-being, parent-child relationships, and children’s social and emotional development, particularly in the context of early adversity. At ACF, a primary focus of her work is understanding approaches to building adult capacities to promote child development, including two-generation / whole-family approaches. She oversees a cross-cutting portfolio of work in the areas of child care, Head Start and Early Head Start, family assistance, and child welfare, and she provides leadership regarding OPRE’s research and evaluation projects that address coordination of services to support children, families, and communities. Dr. Dwyer originally began her work at OPRE as a Society for Research in Child Development Executive Branch Policy Fellow. She has a Ph.D. in Human Development with a specialization in Developmental Sciences from the University of Maryland.