Cynthia Willner Joins Connecticut Data Collaborative

The Connecticut Data Collaborative has announced that Cynthia Willner has joined the organization as Senior Research Associate. Willner, a Guilford resident, brings 15 years of research experience in the social sciences with organizations in Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania.

The Connecticut Data Collaborative (CT Data) is a public-private partnership that advocates for the public availability of open and accessible data, serving nonprofits, advocates, policymakers, community groups, and funders in using data to drive policy and improve programs and services, budgeting and decision making at the state, regional and local levels.

As Senior Research Associate, Willner will help the CTData team support a statewide community around using data to drive planning and policy. Responsibilities in the position include developing and executing research projects, analyzing public data to yield policy-relevant insights, communicating findings to the public, and providing research and analytic expertise to public and private clients.

Willner is a research scientist with strong analytical skills and expertise in social and emotional development, mental health, school-based interventions, education and social program evaluation, survey methodology, and qualitative data collection. She is proficient in advanced statistical methods for the analysis of complex data.

Executive Director Michelle Riordan-Nold said that Willner “will be a tremendous asset in advancing our work, particularly in providing more robust data analysis that can inform decision making. Making data accessible and transparent, and increasing data literacy skills, have been the central focus of our efforts. Now, with Ms. Willner joining our team, we can extend those efforts and assist organizations in analyzing data to inform policy.”

“I’m excited for this opportunity to leverage my research expertise to benefit our community,” said Willner, who earned a PhD. and an M.S. in Human Development & Family Studies from The Pennsylvania State University.

Willner previously served as an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence at the Yale Child Study Center in the Yale University School of Medicine and as a Research Analyst at MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization based in New York City. She also was a Graduate Research Fellow at The Pennsylvania State University. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including Developmental Psychology, Development and Psychopathology, and Biological Psychology.

CT Data empowers an ecosystem of data users by democratizing access to public data and building data literacy skills. CTData serves residents, nonprofits, policymakers, and funders in using data to drive policy, program, and service improvements. The organization strives to promote and engage data users in implementing equitable data practices across the state.

More than 200 data sets are now accessible to the public on the CT Data website, including a wide array of subjects and policy categories. Among its areas of responsibility, CTData has been designated as the lead organization for the State of Connecticut in the U.S. Census Bureau’s State Data Center Program and as Connecticut’s official source for data related to the 2020 Census.

CT Data offices are located on Constitution Plaza in downtown Hartford; more information and datasets are available on the website at ctdata.org.