Staff Profile

Radha Jagannathan is a Professor of Statistics in the Urban Planning & Policy Development Program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. Professor Jagannathan received a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, in 1999. Dr. Jagannathan received Fulbright Scholarships to Germany (2010) and Hungary (2014) to conduct seminars on policy analysis and use of econometrics at the University of Konstanz, Germany and the Central European University, Hungary. She is the recipient of the 2010 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize from the University of Chicago for her research published in the Social Service Review. She also received a DAAD Fellowship to the University of Konstanz in 2007, and the Jerome G. Rose Distinguished Teaching Excellence Award at Rutgers in 2007, and Excellence in Teaching & Mentoring from the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers in 2019. She is Director of the PASCAL Observatory for the Americas

Dr. Jagannathan’s main research interests are in the areas of youth and public welfare. Her recent research has examined the impact of welfare reform on women’s fertility behavior and their mental health, children’s living arrangements, poverty, and incidence of child abuse and neglect. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Research in Labor Economics, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Evaluation, Social Service Review, Child Abuse and Neglect, and Social Science & Medicine. Jagannathan recently completed two books for Oxford University Press, one that attempt to provide a decision making framework for U.S. child services in the U.S. more effective and a second that examines the transmission of values multigenerationally in European, Asian and North American families. Her most recent book for Bristol University Press examines youth labor market policies in Europe and America and provides policy solutions to high rates of youth unemployment in some countries.

Jagannathan was also one of the principal architects of an EU-funded, 11-country youth unemployment study entitled Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-sufficiency and Entrepreneurship (CUPESSE) conducted in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey .

Collaborating with faculty from the School of Environment & Biological Sciences at Rutgers and funded by Johnson & Johnson, Jagannathan has also developed and implemented a nature/science exploration program called Nurture thru Nature (NtN) for New Brunswick elementary school students (ntn.rutgers.edu). The program is designed as a classical experiment and has shown promise in increasing the science, math, and language arts grades of NtN participants relative to non-participating peers.

Dr. Jagannathan’s current evaluation research involves assessment of youth employment programs in several U.S. cities sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Worldwide.

Her teaching interests include courses in statistics, econometrics and research methods and other substantive courses in the area of demography, community and international development, and poverty.