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Melissa A. Clark
Senior Researcher
Melissa Clark is a senior researcher who specializes in the design and implementation of rigorous impact evaluations, with a focus on education and nutrition policy.
Clark is principal investigator for a random assignment evaluation for the U.S. Department of Education that will assess the impact of teachers from highly selective alternative certification programs, such as Teach For America and Teaching Fellows programs, on secondary student math achievement. She is also the project director of a random assignment evaluation of Teach For America's impacts on student achievement at the elementary school level, funded by an I-3 scale-up grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
In recent years, Clark has played a key role in research examining the effects of the school meal program on students’ dietary intakes for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in research estimating the impacts of Abstinence Education programs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and in research estimating the impacts of charter schools on student achievement for the U.S. Department of Education.
Clark has published in the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Economics of Education Review, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and the Journal of Population Economics. She coauthored The Market Comes to Education in Sweden: An Evaluation of Sweden’s Surprising School Reforms, a book from the Russell Sage Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
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- Areas of Expertise
- Key Projects
- Professional Activities
- Publications
- Design and implementation of rigorous impact evaluations
- Education, nutrition, and abstinence education policy
- Member of the American Economic Association and the Association of Public Policy and Management
- Referee for the Journal of Human Resources, Economics of Education Review, Berkeley Electronic Journals in Economic Analysis and Policy, European Economic Review, Journal of Population Economics, and Education Finance and Policy
- "Using Lotteries to Evaluate Schools of Choice: Evidence from a National Study of Charter Schools." Economics of Education Review (July 2011 (online), April 2012 (print))
- "Do Charter Schools Improve Student Achievement? Evidence from a National Randomized Study" (December 2011)
- "The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts" (June 2010)