Scott Baumgartner

Scott Baumgartner specializes in formative, qualitative, and implementation research with family support programs, including responsible fatherhood and healthy relationship education programs and two-generation approaches. He is a leader in program improvement and using rapid-cycle evaluation methods to strengthen programs for families with low income and their children.

Baumgartner’s work at Mathematica focuses on generating evidence and research to improve programs serving vulnerable families and families with low income and their children. He has led foundational research on two-generation initiatives that aim to support child development and improve family economic security. He led a national scan to identify and describe two-generation initiatives, one of the first federally-funded efforts to understand the developmental state and readiness for evaluation in this emerging field. Baumgartner also co-developed a conceptual framework that articulated how collaborative partnerships could support child development and improve family economic security. For the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), he led the next stage of this research, which included intensive technical assistance and formative evaluation with four two-generation initiatives and the development of a measure of two-generation partnerships. Baumgartner was the principal investigator on an effort to develop and test “co-regulation” strategies for adults to intentionally support youth development of self-regulation through healthy relationship programs. He was the deputy director for an ACF study that involved rapid-cycle learning with 10 healthy relationship programs to identify and test program improvement strategies and share insights with the field. Recently, Baumgartner led an evaluation of child welfare agencies using strategies to engage fathers and paternal relatives and promote racial justice in the child welfare system.

Baumgartner joined Mathematica in 2012. He earned an M.P.P. from Georgetown University with a concentration in social, family, and economic policy. Before joining Mathematica, Baumgartner was an educator, teaching middle and high school English in Hartford, Connecticut, rural Massachusetts, and Washington, DC.