La Follette director elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration

University of Wisconsin–Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs director Carolyn J. Heinrich has been elected to become a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, one of the youngest members to ever be elected since Congress chartered the academy in 1967.

Heinrich is professor of public affairs, an affiliated professor of economics and a Regina Loughlin Scholar at UW–Madison. Her research focuses on social welfare policy, public management and performance management, and econometric methods for social-program evaluation.

Heinrich works directly in her research with governments at all levels, including with the federal government on evaluations of workforce development programs; with Wisconsin and states on their social welfare and child support programs; school districts in the evaluation of tutoring and other supplemental educational services; and governments such as Brazil and South Africa on their social and human capital development programs.

Other ongoing projects involve the study of labor market outcomes for low-skilled and disadvantaged workers, health care reform provisions, policy factors that support effective provision of substance abuse treatment services, and conditional cash transfers and related poverty-reduction programs.

An independent, nonpartisan coalition of top public management and organizational leaders, the National Academy of Public Administration helps public sector leaders by anticipating, evaluating, analyzing and making recommendations on the nation’s most critical and complex public management, governance, policy and operational challenges.

Government agencies, Congress and private foundations seek assistance from the academy and its 680 fellows.

Heinrich, a longtime leader within the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and current chair of its Board of Institutional Representatives, will be inaugurated as an academy fellow in Washington, D.C., in November.

She is also president-elect and founding board member of the Public Management Research Association. She served as associate director for research and training at Institute for Research on Poverty at UW–Madison from 2004-09.

Heinrich is the second current La Follette School faculty member to be chosen to join the academy. David Weimer was inaugurated as an academy fellow in 2008. Clara Penniman, founder of La Follette School precursor Center for the Study of Public Policy and Administration, also was a fellow. Penniman passed away in 2009.