Rebecca E. Wolfe

Senior Project Manager, Pathways through Postsecondary

Contact Rebecca E. Wolfe

Rebecca E. Wolfe is a senior program manager on JFF’s Pathways through Postsecondary team, focused on improving the educational options and prospects of young people who have disengaged or disconnected altogether from the educational system. As part of this work, she directs Students at the Center, a JFF project that synthesizes current research on key components of student-centered approaches to learning and adapts them for practice.

Dr. Wolfe brings to JFF a skill set that combines research, program design, policy analysis, and on-the-ground practice for the advancement of communities and marginalized youth. Most recently, she was a program director at the Fairfield County Community Foundation, developing a cross-district school leadership initiative for the development of urban school principals, convening a funder collaborative, administering a teaching award, managing a portfolio of education and youth development grants, and overseeing a network of after-school intermediaries. While there, she authored School Leadership Matters.

Dr. Wolfe’s dissertation, under the guidance of Milbrey McLaughlin, examines the role of community foundations acting as agents of local change. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a site coordinator for GEAR UP, as a teacher in several college-readiness initiatives for low-income youth in Dorchester and Boston, and as a community liaison Boston district attorney's office the first Youth Opportunity Area grant from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Dr. Wolfe holds a B.A. in sociology with a focus in urban education from Harvard and a Ph.D. in education policy and administration from the Stanford University School of Education.