Pia Caronongan

Dr. Pia Caronongan is a research associate professor at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is a faculty affiliate of the Wheelock Educational Policy Center (WEPC). Her work focuses on developing research-based and data-informed policy strategies to support and improve early care and education (ECE) access and quality.

Before coming to BU Wheelock, Dr. Caronongan was a principal researcher at Mathematica, where she led rigorous evaluations of early childhood initiatives and in-depth examinations of the systems that support ECE programs. She recently directed several projects for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These included a project focused on what ECE providers do to support quality and what it costs to deliver high quality services. Another project examined how states, institutes of higher education, and professional organizations use competency-based approaches to promote development of the ECE workforce. At Mathematica, Dr. Caronongan also served as deputy director for early childhood. In that role, she engaged in strategic planning, proposal development, and client and partner outreach and helped to oversee and grow Mathematica’s early childhood work at the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Caronongan’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, policy reports and briefs. She was a Child Care Research Scholar in 2007 and is a member of the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium. She is also a former preschool teacher.