Rachel Lipson is the founding Director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. Launched in 2019, the Project on Workforce is a cross-school, interdisciplinary Harvard initiative focused on policy and research at the intersection of education and labor markets, and is a collaboration between the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School Managing the Future of Work Project and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this role, Rachel is responsible for shaping the Project’s cross-disciplinary and cross-sector research agenda and also leads the Cross-Harvard Study Group on Future of Work. Prior to launching the Project on Workforce, Rachel was Director of Special Projects at Year Up, an acclaimed workforce development training provider. She previously worked on economic development and effective governance at the World Bank, on community colleges for the State of California, on workforce development at JPMorgan Chase, and in training and organizing on President Obama’s re-election campaign. Rachel is an alumna of Harvard College and the joint MBA/MPP program with Harvard Business School and Kennedy School of Government where she was a Rubenstein Fellow. Her writing has been published in the Boston Globe, Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and RealClearPolicy. Rachel’s masters thesis research on community colleges and economic mobility was awarded the Kennedy School’s Frederick Fischer Prize for outstanding research on social policy. She is also a recipient of the Harvard Certificate of Distinction and Excellence in Teaching.
