Rachel Swaner
Vice President of Policy, Research & Advocacy
Joined CSS: 2024
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Bio
Rachel Swaner is the Vice President of Policy, Research, and Advocacy at the Community Service Society. She joins us from Think of Us, where she served as the Senior Director of Research, leading a team doing research and advocacy to elevate the lived experiences of individuals impacted by foster care and drive systemic change in child welfare. Prior to that, she was the Senior Director of Research & Policy at the Center for Justice Innovation (where she was for 16 years), working with and within the criminal legal system and communities most impacted by it to reduce unnecessary incarceration and surveillance and promote community safety and well-being. In this role, she directed a 25-person research team, managed an annual multi-million-dollar budget sourced from federal grants, New York State and City governments, and private foundations, and spearheaded strategic fundraising efforts.
Rachel’s mixed-method research includes cutting-edge participatory projects on youth gun carrying, the sex trade, and foster care. Her work explores interpersonal, community, and systemic trauma; resistance, resilience, and healing; and the structural inequities and root causes of poverty, inequality, and system involvement. Her research has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Gothamist, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, and NPR.
Earlier in her career, Rachel conducted research at Harlem Children’s Zone and directed youth programs at two high schools on the Lower East Side. She is also a long-time advisory board member of the Participatory Budgeting Project, which helped launch participatory budgeting in New York City, enabling communities to decide how public funds are spent.
Since 2007, Rachel has been a professor at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where she teaches Participatory Policymaking, Research Methods, Policy and Program Evaluation, and Poverty & Inequality. She holds a Bachelor of Science from NYU’s Stern School of Business, a Master of Public Administration from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and a PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center. A lifelong New Yorker, she lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Recent Publications by Rachel Swaner
