Rebecca E. Wolfe

Senior Project Manager

Contact Rebecca E. Wolfe

Rebecca E. Wolfe is a senior program manager on JFF’s New Pathways to Postsecondary team, focused on improving the educational options and prospects of young people who have disengaged or disconnected altogether from the educational system. Toward this goal, Dr. Wolfe and the Reconnecting Youth team work with local and state leaders to develop citywide and statewide systems of educational pathways that lead to college readiness, careers, and civic participation. She also conducts research, helps create materials, provides training, and advocates for policies that sustain and expand this work.

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 and as a teacher in several college-readiness initiatives for low-income youth in Dorchester and Boston, and served with the Boston district attorney's office on a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor focusing on high-risk youth.

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.