Advisory Committee

Moushumi Beltangady, A.M., M.P.P.
Senior Policy Analyst for Early Childhood Development, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development, Administration for Children and Families
Ms. Beltangady works across federal agencies on a variety of early childhood development issues, with a focus on American Indian and Alaska Native issues. She serves as the Administration for Children and Families’ lead for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program and is the program manager for the Tribal Home Visiting Program and the Tribal Early Learning Initiative. Ms. Beltangady holds a master’s degree in social services administration from the School of Social Services Administration at the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.

Deborah Daro, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
For more than 30 years, Dr. Daro has helped develop and assess evidence-based home visiting programs, including the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. She also helped develop Healthy Families America, one of the field’s evidence-based models. Among her many responsibilities at Chapin Hall, Dr. Daro leads a program that nurtures promising leaders and innovative approaches for preventing child abuse. She earned her Ph.D. in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley.

Nicole Denmark, Ph.D.
Social Science Research Analyst, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families
Dr. Denmark is interested, broadly, in factors that promote positive development for underserved families. She oversees the Design Options for Home Visiting Evaluation and the Tribal Evaluation Institute, which promote the capacity of Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program grantees to use data and evaluation to improve their home visiting programs. She has a strong interest in cultural and contextual influences on parenting and on the effectiveness of programs for young children and families. Dr. Denmark is also very interested in participatory approaches to research and evaluation, including measurement development. Previously, as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Maryland, College Park, she managed evaluations of culturally responsive home visiting programs for low-income families. Dr. Denmark has a Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Anne Duggan, Sc.D.
Professor, Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Healthy Policy and Management, and Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Dr. Duggan has spent nearly three decades as a researcher and research educator focused on services for families with young children. She is the co-principal investigator of the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation, the national evaluation of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. She leads the evaluation’s implementation study and also serves as the director of the Home Visiting Applied Research Collaborative. Additionally, Dr. Duggan directs evaluations for or serves as an advisor to several states in their competitive home visiting grants.

Diedra Henry-Spires, B.S.
Chief Executive Officer, The Dalton Daley Group
As the head of the Dalton Daley Group, Ms. Henry-Spires leverages her experience on Capitol Hill to improve the lives of children, families, and communities. She is a former professional staff member for human services and income security for United States Senate Committee on Finance. Ms. Henry-Spires began her tenure at the Senate Finance Committee in 2006 as a Brookings Institute LEGIS fellow and concluded her tenure in March 2014. Prior to that, she served for 10 years at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she was the principal public health advisor on violence against women for the Office on Women’s Health. She graduated from Pennsylvania State University and received certification in delivery system reform from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Annette Wisk Jacobi, J.D.
Director, Family Support and Prevention Service, Oklahoma State Department of Health
Ms. Jacobi leads Oklahoma’s efforts to provide home visiting services and other activities related to the promotion of child well-being and the prevention of child maltreatment. She has over 20 years of experience in the family support arena. Ms. Jacobi received her J.D. from the University of Oklahoma College of Law with a special certificate from the Interdisciplinary Training in Child Abuse and Neglect Program. She serves on the board of the National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds, is a member of the Oklahoma Child Death Review Board, and is a master of the William J. Holloway, Jr., American Inn of Court.

Carlise King, M.A.
Executive Director, Early Childhood Data Collaborative, Child Trends
Ms. King leads the Early Childhood Data Collaborative at Child Trends, which promotes policies and practices that support the development and use of coordinated early childhood data across departments of education, social services, and public health to guide policy. Ms. King regularly convenes experts from states and national and technical assistance groups to communicate effective strategies for data integration and use of data to support policy. She brings years of experience analyzing early childhood services to improve policies and coordinate services for vulnerable young children. Ms. King has over 16 years of experience conducting state- and national-level research on early childhood issues and examining the impact of state and federal policies on parents’ access to child care services, licensed child care supply, child care costs, and the child care workforce.

Lauren Supplee, Ph.D.
Program Area Director for Early Childhood Research, Child Trends
At Child Trends, Dr. Supplee provides leadership and guidance to a team of scientists in the early childhood field. She also serves as a principal investigator on grants and contracts related to evaluation and capacity building for early childhood programs. Dr. Supplee previously worked in the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. There, her portfolio comprised a number of home visiting projects, including the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness review of home visitation programs. She received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from Indiana University.

Jeffrey Valentine, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Louisville
Dr. Valentine specializes in using meta-analysis, a systematic approach that combines data from multiple studies, to help policymakers and practitioners solve problems that impact people’s quality of life. Although most of his research focuses on educational policy, Dr. Valentine also applies his expertise to a broad range of social issues, including social welfare and development. He is co-editor of The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis, Second Edition. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Missouri.

David W. Willis, M.D.
Director, Division of Home Visiting and Early Childhood Systems, Health Resources and Services Administration
Dr. Willis is a longstanding early childhood leader. In Oregon, he founded the Northwest Early Childhood Institute and served as the first medical director for the Artz Center for Developmental Health and Audiology, providing multidisciplinary state-of-the-art clinical services. He is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health Sciences University, a previous Harris Mid-Career Fellow with Zero to Three, and a past president of the Oregon Pediatric Society. He also served as an early childhood advisor to Oregon’s last two governors and provided national leadership on early childhood issues with the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is an invited member of Jack Shonkoff’s Frontiers for Innovation at Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child, where he joins with other national leaders in bringing breakthrough strategies to the field of early childhood.