For as long as she can remember, Dr. Natalie D. Hengstebeck wanted to understand why some families are happy and healthy, and others are not. She witnessed firsthand the toll that toxic stressors like alcoholism, mental illness, and chronic relationship turmoil can have on children and families, and how these negative effects can be amplified by external circumstances, like economic recession. This point of reference and firsthand experience navigating early adversity informed her PhD research on how social context shapes child and family well-being. As a first-generation university student, she intimately understands the significance of the knowledge-making process and believes in the potential for science to improve people’s lives. Her mission is to serve as an ambassador for science, bridging the divide between science, technology, and policy to advance social equity and well-being, especially for our society's most vulnerable children and families.
Building on experience in the public and private sectors, she is committed to enhancing organizational capacity to build science and a scientific way of thinking into policy and practice; for example, developing systems to monitor and evaluate performance, generating evidence to fill knowledge gaps, and leveraging these insights to improve processes and policies to better serve the public. When thinking about organizational or policy change, she asks questions like: Who is or will be most affected by this change (or failure to change)? How have we engaged with these populations and how can we do a better job empowering them in our processes? What barriers do they face and how can we address them? How can we (re)design systems to center the people who will be most impacted?
A quantitative social scientist, Hengstebeck earned her PhD in human development and family studies and research methodology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During graduate school, she worked at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the SAS Institute, RAND Corporation, and the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families. Previously, she studied psychology; sociology; communications and media studies; and professional writing at DePaul University. Most recently, Hengstebeck was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow (STPF) at the National Science Foundation, where she worked on strategic partnerships and evaluation within the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Scholars Strategy Network, where she was based at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. In this role, she enhanced the use of research among North Carolina’s local, state, and federal lawmakers.
Building on experience in the public and private sectors, she is committed to enhancing organizational capacity to build science and a scientific way of thinking into policy and practice; for example, developing systems to monitor and evaluate performance, generating evidence to fill knowledge gaps, and leveraging these insights to improve processes and policies to better serve the public. When thinking about organizational or policy change, she asks questions like: Who is or will be most affected by this change (or failure to change)? How have we engaged with these populations and how can we do a better job empowering them in our processes? What barriers do they face and how can we address them? How can we (re)design systems to center the people who will be most impacted?
A quantitative social scientist, Hengstebeck earned her PhD in human development and family studies and research methodology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. During graduate school, she worked at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the SAS Institute, RAND Corporation, and the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families. Previously, she studied psychology; sociology; communications and media studies; and professional writing at DePaul University. Most recently, Hengstebeck was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow (STPF) at the National Science Foundation, where she worked on strategic partnerships and evaluation within the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Scholars Strategy Network, where she was based at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. In this role, she enhanced the use of research among North Carolina’s local, state, and federal lawmakers.
