Faculty Guide

Title

Senior Research Associate and Lecturer

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management

Expertise

Race-, Ethnicity- and Income-Based Inequality; Social Policy; Education and Achievement Gaps; Social Determinants of Family and Child Health and Well-Being; Community-/Place-based Policies and Strategies; Policy Evaluation

Profile

Erin Hardy is a Senior Research Associate at Brandeis University for the diversitydatakids.org Project (funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation), housed at the Institute for Child, Youth & Family Policy (ICYFP) at the Heller School for Social Policy & Management, and led by Faculty Director of ICYFP, Dolores Acevedo-Garcia. In her current role, Erin serves as the senior data analyst tasked with implementing all data-related activities of the diversitydatakids.org Project--a project focused on using data to advance child well-being and racial/ethnic equity.
In her postgraduate work, Erin has studied race-, ethnicity-, and income-based achievement gaps in education in the US, performing quantitative policy research for a leading national achievement gap scholar, Professor Ronald Ferguson of the Harvard Kennedy School, faculty chair of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University and co-founder of the Tripod Project for School Improvement. Erin also has experience in policy evaluation research, particularly process and impact evaluation of community-based initiatives, gained through her tenure at RTI International as a Research Associate. Her current research is focused on connecting research in the areas of racial and ethnic stratification and child development, with particular focus on early childhood and spatial methods. She is also focused on the development of nationally-comparable indicators related to racial and ethnic equity in child health, education and well-being. Early in her career, Erin spent half a decade working in corporate and public finance investment banking serving Midwest private and public sector clients. Erin earned a Master of Science in Political Science at MIT and a BA in Government and Economics at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Most importantly, Erin is the proud mother of an exuberant three-year old girl.

Awards and Honors

RTI International Internal Leadership Award (2008)

Courses Taught

HS	263f	Applied Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
HS	297f	Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Scholarship

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Future Directions in Research on Institutional and Interpersonal Discrimination and Child Health." American Journal of Public Health Published online ahead of print February 14, 2013. (2013).

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Diversity in Early Education." Advancing the Legacy of Mendez and Brown: A National Conference on School Diversity. The National Coalition on School Diversity. May 2012.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Mapping Access to Communities of Opportunity for Kids." Transforming Race 2012: Visions of Change. Annual convening of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity, Ohio State University. March 2012.

McArdle, N., Hardy, E., Osypuk, T., & Acevedo-Garcia, D. The Changing Face of Homeowners in Large Metro Areas. Diversitydata.org Issue Brief: 2012.

McArdle, N., Osypuk, T., Hardy, E. & Acevedo-Garcia, D. The Changing Face of Households with Children in Large Metropolitan Areas. Diversitydata.org Issue Brief: 2012.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Diversity and Geography of Opportunity For U.S. Children: Concepts, Measures and Early Findings." International Society of Child Indicators Annual Conference. York, UK. August 2011.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Equity in Early Opportunities to Learn: Examining the Roles of Place, Space, and Race - Exploratory Spatial Analysis of the Density of High-Quality Early Learning Centers, Neighborhood Opportunity and Racial Composition in Ohio and Massachusetts." Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank Policy Summit. Cleveland, OH. June, 2011.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Equity in Early Opportunities to Learn: Examining the Roles of Place, Space, and Race - Exploratory Spatial Analysis of the Density of High-Quality Early Learning Centers, Neighborhood Opportunity and Racial Composition in Selected U.S. States." Northeastern University Research & Scholarship Expo. Boston, MA. April 2011.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "High Quality Early Learning Centers in Low Opportunity Neighborhoods: An Exploratory Analysis of Spatial Patterns Associated with Center Locations in Massachusetts." Center for Geographic Analysis. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. January, 2011.

Hardy, Erin Flaherty. "Using National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Data to Learn More about Diverse Learners in Michigan." First Annual Conference on Special Populations: Accelerating Student Achievement through Collaboration. Michigan Department of Education, Lansing, Michigan. September 2011.

McArdle, N., Osypuk, T., Hardy, E. & Acevedo-Garcia, D. Segregation Falls for Black Children in Most Metro Areas But Remains High; Fewer Metros Experience Declines for Latinos. Diversitydata.org Issue Brief: 2011.

Joshi, P., Hardy, E., & Hawkins, S. Final report: The role of religiosity in the lives of the low-income population: A comprehensive review of the evidence. Waltham, MA: RTI International Prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE): 2009.