Rachel Outhred

Rachel was part of the Young Lives Education Team as a Senior Researcher from April 2019 to Feburary 2021. She worked on a programme of research and policy engagement funded by Echidna Giving. The research focused on the relationship between early childhood care and gender disparities in psychosocial wellbeing and cognitive development; the link between gendered attributes, skills, and educational trajectories, and academic and labour market outcomes in early adulthood.

Prior to joining Young Lives, Rachel held senior positions in international development consultancy firms (Itad, Oxford Policy Management and the Australian Council for Education Research) and undertook her Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Hawke Research Institute in South Australia. Rachel holds a PhD in International Studies, and a post-graduate qualification in Development Studies, Linguistics Testing and Education.

Rachel's main research interests focus on education in low and middle-income settings and include defining and measuring desired outcomes (with a particular focus on latent traits), decision-making processes in agenda setting at the international and national levels and the role of social norms at the household and school levels.