Christina Yancey

Christina Yancey is vice president of Employment and Economic Opportunity at AIR, where she leads efforts to expand economic mobility by aligning education, workforce, and community systems through place-based, data-driven innovations.

Dr. Yancey leads a portfolio of more than 60 research and technical assistance projects spanning the full education-to-employment continuum—from educational assessment to postsecondary pathways and apprenticeships to workforce development and human capital strategy. In this role, she supports a multidisciplinary team of researchers, capacity-builders, coaches, data scientists, survey methodologists, and technical assistance specialists. Together, they mobilize change with community partners by designing, implementing, and scaling impactful solutions across a variety of geographic contexts.

Through her work, Dr. Yancey expands opportunities for youth and adults facing structural barriers to economic mobility. Her recent projects include launching AIR’s PlaceWise initiative, which works with communities to co-design local education, workforce, and economic development systems around community-driven talent strategies. She also helped map out ways young people can move toward better economic opportunities in the Blueprint for Youth Economic Mobility. In addition, she serves as principal investigator for the 4-year Upward Apprenticeship Initiative, which brings together employers, colleges, and training organizations to expand work-based learning opportunities. She also advises a national effort to identify and scale effective higher education in-prison programs, advancing pathways for individuals historically excluded from traditional systems.

As a field mobilizer, Dr. Yancey is a leader in advancing the field of evaluation and evidence use. She serves as acting chair of the Evaluation Policy Taskforce for the American Evaluation Association, participates on a U.S. Sentencing Commission committee to improve the utility of administrative data for evidence-building, and represents AIR as the institutional representative to the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Prior to joining AIR in 2023, Dr. Yancey served as Chief Evaluation Officer at the U.S. Department of Labor, where she led the agency’s evaluation agenda and advanced learning priorities across three presidential administrations. Earlier in her career, she held leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Justice and as a university-based researcher, focusing on cross-system initiatives spanning workforce development, justice, and human services.