Porsche Boddicker-Young

Porsche Boddicker-Young is a senior researcher and equity-centered advisor in the Human Services unit at Mathematica. She is a developmental psychologist by trade, spending her graduate training and many subsequent years understanding the whole child. Her expertise is in early childhood development and education. Specifically, she has spent time understanding how historical and root causes have affected opportunities for high-quality education for Black children and their families. As a senior researcher, Boddicker-Young is responsible for leading projects, client relationships, and mentoring junior staff. As an equity-centered advisor, she works with a team of researchers to provide equity guidance on specific projects, helping teams respond to proposals centering equity from the onset, and providing equity-centered technical assistance and guidance to the company as a whole.

During her time at Child Trends, Boddicker-Young worked with many foundation clients. Most recently, she worked as the racial equity lead for a project funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, evaluating the early childhood work conducted by Los Angeles-based Hilton grantees. Simultaneously, she worked as the equity advisor for a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a preschool data equity framework. Boddicker-Young also worked as the co-principal investigator for a project funded by the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, developing a series of public-facing resources focused on the development and well-being of Black families, infants, and toddlers; this work used a strengths-based approach to analyze data through an equity and culturally responsive lens that affirmed Black children and their families. Boddicker-Young also served as the project director for a project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, exploring innovative practices at the intersection of early childhood development and health equity across the United States.

As the racial equity manager and a racial equity expert at Child Trends, she worked within the organization to shape its culture and that of the early childhood department to be more equitable. This work involved reviewing deliverables to ensure they used culturally responsive and equitable language for public dissemination. She also provided technical assistance both internally and externally to support the use of racial equity and culturally responsive and affirming practices. She holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology form Howard University.