Chrishana M. Lloyd is a research scholar with over 25 years of experience in the social science and education fields. Dr. Lloyd draws on community-engaged research methods, implementation science, innovative data collection strategies, history, and context to understand and evaluate early care and education, human services, philanthropic programming, policies, and systems. In many of her projects, she partners with communities and families and leverages public and private dollars to seed, innovate, and work toward scalable and sustainable systems-focused solutions that support their well-being. 

Dr. Lloyd is a go-to person for community-driven research and thought partnership focused on policies, systems, and their impact. Her research on compensation and policy in early education catalyzed a $30 million federal investment in a National Early Care and Education Workforce Center, of which she was the inaugural director and research lead. Dr. Lloyd has also co-led federally funded work on curricula (Head Start’s Classroom-based Approaches and Resources for Emotion and Social Skill Promotion Project (CARES)); coaching (Study of Coaching Practices in Early Care and Education Settings (SCOPE)); and relationship education (Supporting Healthy Marriages).

Her current family- and systems-focused work includes Black Families Flourishing, a multi-year project to advance knowledge about the diversity of Black families and how policies, programs, and systems interact to support their well-being; Baby Bonds-New Mexico, a wealth-building program implemented in multiple locations across the country; and the Promoting Housing Justice Through Community Voice and Secondary Data project, a co-led community-based research project focused on families, housing, health, and policy change. Dr. Lloyd also works with philanthropic organizations to support their progress toward systems-shifting strategies and goals.

Dr. Lloyd’s national reputation for rigorous and community-embedded research occurs alongside her strong belief in collaboration, mobilization, and dissemination efforts to advance knowledge and strengthen systems. To this end, she regularly works with researchers, policymakers, practitioners, families, philanthropists, and others—at the local, state, and federal levels—to engage in activities such as strategic planning, research and evaluation, facilitation of data use, dissemination of learnings, implementation of promising strategies, and efforts to inform policy, programs, and systems.

Dr. Lloyd has authored academic and magazine articles, blogs, book chapters, infographics, policy briefs, reports, newsletters, and toolkits, and has presented her work in community, conference, town hall, video, and webinar formats. She has been called on and cited by publications, including the Amsterdam News, Early Learning Nation, MSNBC, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and others—highlighting the applicability and relevance of her work to a wide range of audiences. Dr. Lloyd has also served as a content advisor on family- and education-focused books, podcasts, and education and human service curricula, and is a frequently requested speaker, trainer, and technical assistance provider.