Jamie O’Leary, MPA, MPH

Jamie is the Associate Director, Policy and External Affairs for the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy and Schoenbaum Family Center. In this role, she leads the center’s policy research and evaluation activities and oversees strategic communication and research translation efforts to external partners. She serves as a co-investigator on Crane’s policy research projects, including the $2 million Child Care Policy Research Partnership funded by the Administration for Children and Families conducted in partnership with the Ohio Department of Children and Youth and Ohio’s Preschool Development Fund needs assessment to examine birth-to-five programs in the state. She has served as co-investigator and done research on state child care policies related to access, affordability, quality, and equity, including projects to analyze state child care policies in Colorado and Wyoming. In these projects Jamie has led policy landscape scans, analysis of messaging on child care, reviews of literature on the benefits and costs of child care, and interviews and focus groups with state policy leaders, community partners, and early childhood education administrators and teachers. Jamie’s expertise includes early childhood and child care policy, K-12 policy, legislative/regulatory processes, and communicating/disseminating research to wide audiences.

Before joining Ohio State in 2018, Jamie worked in education research, advocacy, and policy analysis for a think tank and an Ohio community school authorizer and coalition. As a first-generation college graduate committed to equity for all children, she began her career in the classroom, teaching kindergarten in Camden, New Jersey, as well as tutoring high schoolers in Trenton, New Jersey. She received a bachelor’s in political science from Messiah College, earning a Truman Fellowship in 2004; a master’s degree in public affairs (MPA) from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, where she graduated with distinction; and her Master of Public Health from Ohio State’s College of Public Health, where she studied the return on investment from home visiting programs for mothers and babies. Jamie was recognized as a recipient of the 2024 Ohio State Community Engaged Practitioner Award.