Francine Jacobs Tufts University, USA

Francine Jacobs, Ed.D., is Associate Professor at Tufts University, with a joint appointment in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, of which she is currently Chairperson.  Her research and teaching interests are primarily in the area of child and family policy--child welfare and protection, child care and early childhood education, family support, and community-based initiatives--and in program evaluation.  During her time at Tufts, she ahs been the principal investigator for numerous grants, with projects ranging from coordinating an early childhood community planning process in Boston to developing an evaluation process for state family preservation programs.  Her current project is a multiyear evaluation of a universal home visiting program for teen mothers, Health Families Massachusetts.  In addition to her teaching and research, she serves on several advisory committees for child and family service organizations and research studiesand was recently appointed to the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Family and Work Policies.  She graduate from Brandeis University and received her master's and doctoral degrees from Harvard University.  Pior to joining the Tufts faculty in 1986, she directed two early childhood programs and was the associate director and director of research at the Harvard Family Research Project.  She also maintained an active program evaluation practice, consulting for numerous organizations on the planning and conduct of evaluation activities.  She has lectured and written extensively about program evaluation and about child and family policy.  Her two coedited volumes, "Evaluating Family Program" and "More Than Kissing Babies: Current Child and Family Policy in the United States," focus on these areas.