Mary Clare Lennon, PhD

Dr. Mary Clare Lennon's recent research examines how the economic circumstances of families affect children's health, academic achievement, psychological well-being, and later life chances. Her work examines changes in family income over the course of children's lives and classifies families according to patterns of change. This research has found that poverty throughout childhood is especially detrimental for children while poverty experienced later is less so. Dr. Lennon is also interested in how social policies may affect low-income families and children. Until recently, she worked with the Research Forum at the National Center for Children in Poverty to understand the effects of welfare reform on women and their children. This work concerns efforts to understand how welfare reform was implemented at the state level from the perspective of welfare administrators, workers, and recipients. It also focuses on women who experience personal problems, including depression, substance abuse, and domestic violence, that may limit their ability to comply with the work-first requirements of the welfare system. Dr. Lennon has edited books in each of these areas, as well as written academic and policy reports. A third area of research focuses on understanding problems of homelessness. Research currently underway aims to develop typologies of individuals based on their patterns of homelessness over time, which can help identify groups of individuals at risk for chronic homelessness and may be used to specify the effects of interventions to prevent homelessness among those at risk.