Stephen Baker

Stephen Baker is Senior Evaluation & Research Scientist at Outlier Research & Evaluation and a mixed-methods researcher who has conducted program and policy evaluations for over thirty years. He has served as panel reviewer for NSF and the Department of Education and principal investigator and project director on evaluations funded by local and national philanthropic foundations, the Department of Education and NSF. His evaluation and research portfolio is broad, with concentrations in education reform, informal learning, community-based and collaborative policy approaches, and the social and emotional bases of student success. His current projects include a Department of Education RCT assessing STEM career development in high school students; a UChicago and City Colleges of Chicago collaboration to increase international content in CCC courses; an implementation study of evidence-based interventions at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services; and an NSF “Harnessing the Data Revolution” effort to develop convergent instruction materials for CyberGIS.

He holds masters’ and doctoral degrees from the Crown Family School and was a researcher at Chapin Hall at UChicago for more than 20 years. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the University in evaluation, research, data management, and U.S. social welfare. He was a member of the University of Chicago SSA/Chapin Hall Institutional Review Board, Crown Family School field instructor, and serves as facilitator of the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation Doctoral Fellows program.