Sharon Wolf

Sharon Wolf was a National Poverty Fellow at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation from 2014 to 2015. Wolf received her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from New York University, where she held an Institute for Education Sciences Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Training Fellowship, as well as an American Psychological Foundation Elizabeth Munsterberg Koppitz Child Psychology Graduate Student Fellowship. Drawing on theories and methods from developmental and community psychology, her research explores how poverty and inequality affect the pathways through which key settings for children’s development—families and schools—influence children’s academic success. Her work involves conducting both descriptive research to shed light on key levers of change within families and schools, as well as designing and testing interventions aimed at improving these levers to inform anti-poverty and education policies. Her dissertation focused on the effects of a conditional cash transfer program in New York City on adolescents and their families, and considered how inequality in schools moderated program impacts on this anti-poverty initiative. Wolf is currently an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.