Rachel Cook

Rachel Cook has nearly two decades of experience partnering with local communities to evaluate strategies designed to enhance economic and wellbeing outcomes for individuals and families. Her extensive work spans numerous critical areas, including workforce systems, child welfare, public benefits programs, and education and training.

As a mixed methodologist, Cook excels at investigating complex systems within multi-dimensional contexts. For more than 15 years, she has been designing site-level procedures for large-scale randomized controlled trials and leading local implementation studies. Her current portfolio of work includes leading a case study of human-centered approaches to program design and delivery in four state TANF programs. Additionally, Cook is the implementation study lead for the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wagner-Peyser Act Employment Services Evaluation and the AIR project director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Pathways to Work Clearinghouse.

Prior to joining AIR in 2023, Cook provided leadership on several evaluation and technical assistance efforts for ACF and DOL. She served as deputy project director for ACF’s Replication of Recovery and Reunification Interventions for Families-Impact Study, Employment Processes as Barriers to Employment Study, and Job Search Assistance Strategies Evaluation, as well as DOL’s Workforce Innovation Fund (WIF).  

Cook is passionate about using evidence to enrich program design and delivery and improve customer experience and outcomes for individuals and families. She is a skilled communicator with expert ability to translate complex material into accessible formats, thereby maximizing the utilization of evidence-based practices.  For more than a decade she has worked to build evaluation capacity through the delivery of evaluation technical assistance. She has been a senior evaluation technical assistance provider for grantees of DOL’s WIF and ACF’s Community Collaboration in Child Welfare and Personal Responsibility Education Program. She is also part of the team leading evaluation capacity building efforts for the U.S. Army’s Center for Primary Prevention Innovation and Advancement. Cook also serves on the board of the National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to facilitate the sharing of research and statistical analysis to contribute to the development and administration of effective human services programs.