Julia Silhan Ingels
Senior Survey Researcher

As project director for the Early Head Start 5th-Grade Follow-Up, conducted for the Administration for Children and Families, Ingels managed three rounds of follow-up data collection at 17 local sites around the United States. Child assessment and interview data were collected from 1,600 children and their parents. Parent-child interactions were recorded and coded, and data were also collected from the children’s teachers.

Ingels served as survey director for the Healthy Start Participant Study, conducted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The evaluation determined the factors related to the successful implementation of the program and the effect of Healthy Start on maternal and infant health outcomes. An important aspect of the Healthy Start study involved training staff to use culturally and linguistically sensitive techniques for interviewing the multiple ethnic groups in the study.

Ingels is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research. Ingels co-authored A Participatory Approach to Achieve Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Research and Evaluation: The Healthy Start Participant Study, presented at the 2009 Annual Conference of the American Evaluation Association. She has a B.A. from New York University in Social Anthropology, and graduate work in Social Anthropology at the University of Chicago.