Robin Lindquist-Grantz, PhD, LISW-S, is a senior researcher at Mathematica. She has extensive experience conducting applied research and evaluation with health and human services programs. In addition to her work with Clear Pathways, she leads a cross-site qualitative study to understand the factors that lead to parental substance use and involvement with the child welfare system, and she co-leads an evaluation advisory panel for a federal evaluation of the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics model. She serves as the deputy project director for a summative evaluation of a service model to prevent homelessness among youth and young adults involved in the child welfare system.

Before joining Mathematica, Robin helped state and local agencies establish performance measures to track their progress, design continuous quality improvement processes to support program implementation, and utilize program evaluation to assess outcomes. She partnered with programs to use measurement and evaluation to improve behavioral health services for emerging adults, youth housing and homelessness services, and post-overdose response programs. Robin conducted the first multi-site evaluation of Ohio’s Quick Response Team deflection model that uses collaborations between first responders and behavioral health providers to divert individuals who use substances from the criminal justice system and into treatment. She served as a research advisor for the Youth Council for Suicide Prevention at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Robin builds the capacity of all individuals to use data to create actionable change. She is an expert in participatory research approaches and equitably engages community members, program staff, and agency leaders in all stages of the research process. She has used participatory approaches with high school students to develop adolescent suicide and substance use prevention strategies, young adults with lived experienced to evaluate youth homelessness projects, and practitioners and evaluators to inform systems change strategies.

Robin’s work has been published in journals such as Children and Family Services Review, Journal of Drug Issues, Health Promotion Practice, and Journal of Mixed Methods Research. Robin graduated with a PhD in educational studies with a focus on participatory research from the University of Cincinnati and she is a licensed independent social worker in Ohio.