Lisbeth B. (Lee) Schorr is a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Social Policy.  She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Aspen Institute's Roundtable on Community Change, and was its founding co-chair.

Ms. Schorr has woven many strands of experience with social policy, community building, education, and human service programs together to become a national authority on "what works" to improve the future of disadvantaged childeren and their families and neighborhoods.  She has held leadership positions in many of the major national efforts on behalf of children and youth, including the National Center for Children in Poverty, City Year, the National Academy of Science's Board on Children and Families, the ECS National Commission on Governing America's Schools, and the Foundation for Child Development.  From 1998 to 2007 she was a member of the National Selection Committee of the Ford Foundation/Kennedy School Awards for Innovations in American Government.  From 1965 to 1967 she headed the health division of the Community Action Program at the federal Office of Econmic Opportunitity.

She is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.  She has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Whittier College, Lewis and Clark College, Wheelock College, the University of Maryland, Bank Street College of Education, and Wilkes University.

Lisbeth Schorr's 1988 book, WITHIN OUR REACH: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, analyzed social programs that succeeded in effectively combating serious social problems (such as high rates of single parenting, youth violence, and school failure).  With its documentation of efforts to improve the life prospects of disadvantaged children, WITHIN OUR REACH is in wide use in colleges and universities, and by policy makers, practitioners, and advocates for more effective interventions.  In COMMON PURPOSE: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America, published by Doubleday in September 1997, she laid out the evidence that by acting strategically, focusing on results, and putting together what works, it is possible to strengthen children and families, and to rebuild communities.  

Ms. Schorr founded the Pathways Mapping Initiative (PMI) of the Project on Effective Interventions, supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to develop new approaches to building a stronger knowledge base about “what works” in reaching such goals as School Readiness, Third Grade School Success, the Successful Transition to Young Adulthood, and the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. 

Most recently, Ms. Schorr’s work has been focused on efforts to broaden the conventional understanding of evidence as applied to the design and evaluation of complex initiatives, and to promote a results orientation to the reform of social policies and programs.