McCourt School launches fellowship program focused on social policy and child well-being

The McCourt School of Public Policy’s Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellows Program , established through a generous gift from the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF), will draw in senior policy leaders from across sectors, particularly those with experience in social policy and child well-being. Distinguished Visiting Fellows will participate in informal dialogues, public and classroom lectures and seminar series and help prepare students to bridge theory and practice in their lives outside of the classroom.

“The Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellows Program provides an interim home for policy leaders as they plan their next career move and a chance to engage with the community at McCourt and beyond. By working with our students and faculty, we hope the Fellows will help shape the future of policymaking by sharing insights and lessons from their rich career experiences,” said Bradley Hardy , chair of the selection committee and distinguished professor at the McCourt School.

“We are proud to support this initiative and look forward to its transformative impact on both the Fellows and the students they inspire,” said JooYeun Chang, program director for child well-being at the Doris Duke Foundation.

Beginning this fall, Linda M. Burton, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Sherry Lachman and Mark Schneider will join the McCourt community as inaugural Doris Duke Distinguished Visiting Fellows and contribute to teaching and academic research for up to one year.

“We are deeply grateful to the Doris Duke Foundation for their support and thrilled to welcome Linda, Indi, Sherry and Mark. With a unique blend of expertise and experience, these leaders will support our mission of educating the next generation of policy leaders,” said McCourt School Dean Maria Cancian.

Burton is the former dean, professor and Eugene and Rose Kleiner chair for the study of processes, practices and policies in aging at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Foundation on Child Development and has held leadership positions on numerous boards, councils and committees. Burton’s research integrates ethnographic, neuroscience, developmental and demographic approaches and examines the roles that inequality, poverty and intergenerational family dynamics play in the lives of children, adolescents and adults in urban and rural families.

Indivar Dutta-Gupta, most recently president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy, is a recognized researcher, analyst, advocate and policy influencer on U.S. economic policy. For nearly eight years, Dutta-Gupta grew the size and impact of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, which he helped lead. He frequently advises political candidates on child, family and economic policy, testifies before Congress on these topics and speaks to the media about social and economic policy issues of the day. He is a former Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow, Harry S. Truman Scholar, board and advisory group member of nonpartisan groups, a two-time member of National Academies committees, US-Japan Leadership Program delegate and co-chair of President Biden’s economic policy committee during the 2020 campaign.

Sherry Lachman has dedicated her career to improving government and nonprofit programs for underserved communities as a senior policymaker in two presidential administrations, a social entrepreneur and a public interest attorney. Previously, she served as the head of social impact at OpenAI. In the Biden-Harris Administration, Lachman led the White House Office of Management and Budget division that oversaw the development of policies and budgets across the federal government’s education, labor and social services agencies. In the Obama-Biden Administration, she served as a domestic policy advisor to then-Vice President Biden and as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education. From 2015 to 2021, Lachman founded and served as the executive director of Foster America, a nonprofit dedicated to reforming the child welfare system. Earlier in her career, she was a senior education counsel in the U.S. Senate and a children’s civil rights attorney at the Juvenile Law Center.

Mark Schneider focuses on education research and development and higher education administration. He is a distinguished professor emeritus at Stony Brook University and a nonresident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. From 2018-2024, Schneider was the Institute of Education Sciences director. Previously, he was a vice president and institute fellow at the American Institutes for Research and the National Center for Education Statistics commissioner. His work has been published widely in academic journals, including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology and Public Administration Review, and has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The 74, Education Week, The Hill, Chronicle of Higher Education and Education Next.