Cynthia Osborne
Professor of Early Childhood Education and Policy, Executive Director, Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations
Cynthia Osborne is a Professor of Early Childhood Education and Policy in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at the Peabody College. Osborne is the founder and Executive Director of the national Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center, an academic research center that translates the science of the developing child into state level policies with the strongest evidence base of effectiveness. Osborne’s teaching and research interests focus on social policy, poverty and inequality, family and child wellbeing, and family demography. She has extensive experience leading long-term evaluations of state and national programs, intending to help organizations understand what works and ensure sustainable implementation of effective policies. She serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s committee, Exploring the Opportunity Gap for Young Children Birth to Age 8, and prior to that, was appointed to NASEM’s Committee On Building An Agenda To Reduce The Number Of Children In Poverty By Half In 10 Years. She serves as Vice President of the Policy Council for the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). Osborne holds a Ph.D. in demography and public affairs from Princeton University, a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a Master of Arts in education from Claremont Graduate University.
Representative Publications
Peer Reviewed Journals
2022 Osborne, Cynthia, Jacque DeAnda, and Kaeley Benson. Engaging Fathers: Expanding the Scope of Evidence-Based Home Visiting Programs. Family Relations, 1-16. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12636
2020 Osborne, Cynthia and Nora Ankrum. “Mom, I’m Pregnant”: The Adolescent Pregnancy Reveal. Social Service Review. 94 (2), 339 – 372. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1086/708749
2020 Osborne, Cynthia, Jennifer Huffman, Selena Caldera, and Anna Lipton Galbraith. The Influence of Field-Based Training on Caseworker Turnover. Children and Youth Services Review, 108. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104645
2019 Osborne, Cynthia, Hilary Warner-Doe, McKenna LeClear, and Holly Sexton. The Effect of CASA on Child Welfare Permanency Outcomes. Child Maltreatment. 25 (3), 328 -338. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559519879510
2019 Otten, Jennifer, Victoria Bradford, Bert Stover, Heather Hill, Cynthia Osborne, Katherine Getts, and Noah Seixas. The Culture of Health in Early Care and Education: Workers’ Wages, Health, and Health-related Job Characteristics. Health Affairs, 38 (5), 709 – 720. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2018.05493
2019 Osborne, Cynthia, Hilary Warner-Doe, and Jennifer Lawson. Who gets a CASA volunteer? A Study of Selection Bias in CASA Appointment. Children and Youth Services Review, 98, 65 – 71. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.12.020
Book Chapters
2021 Osborne, Cynthia. Designing a Prenatal-to-3 Policy Agenda. The Scale-up Effect in Early Childhood and Public Policy: Why interventions lose impact at scale and what we can do about it. John List, Dana Suskind, and Lauren Supplee (eds), Routledge. May.
2020 Osborne, Cynthia. Fatherhood and Public Policy. Handbook of Fathers: Prenatal to PreK, Hiram Fitzgerald (ed.). Springer Press. October.
2015 Osborne, Cynthia. LBJ’s Legacy in Contemporary Social Welfare Policy: Have We Come Full Circle? (pp. 259 – 282). LBJ’s Neglected Legacy; Reshaping Domestic Policy and Government. Norm Glickman, Laurence Lynn, and Robert Wilson (eds.), Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
2009 Knab, Jean, Irv Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, Emily Moiduddin, and Cynthia Osborne. The Effects of Welfare and Child Support Policies on the Incidence of Marriage Following a Nonmarital Birth (pp. 290 – 307). Welfare Reform and its Long-Term Consequences for America's Poor, James P. Ziliak (ed.), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Other Publications
2021 Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center. Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap 2021: State Progress Toward a Strong and Equitable Prenatal-to-3 System of Care. Child and Family Research Partnership. Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. http://pn3policy.org/pn-3-state-policy-roadmap .
2020 Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center. Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap 2020: Building a Strong and Equitable Prenatal-to-3 System of Care. Child and Family Research Partnership. Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.
2019 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25246 .