Jennifer DePaoli is a Senior Researcher at the Learning Policy Institute and co-leads LPI’s Whole Child Education team. She directs the Whole Child Policy Table, working with partners and policymakers to collectively drive systems change aligned with the science of learning and development. She also brings a whole child lens to teacher preparation and development policy  through her work on the Teacher Licensure Collaborative and EdPrepLab.

DePaoli has more than a decade of experience teaching and conducting research and policy analysis in K–12 education. She began her career teaching middle-grade students and later pre-service teachers at the University of Akron and Ohio State University. Prior to joining LPI, DePaoli served as the Senior Research & Policy Advisor at Civic Enterprises, where she led research on raising high school graduation rates and social and emotional learning. Before that, she conducted school choice and charter school policy research at Policy Matters Ohio. DePaoli currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Social Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy. 

DePaoli earned her PhD in Education from Ohio State University, where she focused on state- and district-level K–12 education reform policy. She also holds a Master’s in Middle Childhood Education and a BA in Communications from the University of Dayton.