Dr. Bess Rose is a statistician with the University of Maryland School of Social Work and the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center. Previously, she was a senior study director at Westat, a research and evaluation coordinator at the Maryland State Department of Education, a technical writing advisor at Goucher College, and taught writing at SUNY Buffalo. Dr. Rose’s current research interests include understanding the contributions of school and work environments to children’s and adults’ growth trajectories. She received her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, with support of an IES fellowship. In her dissertation she applied cross-classified multiple membership growth models to examine the impact of different types of school moves on academic achievement. Current research includes applying longitudinal data analysis methods to examine poverty as a predictor of wage trajectories.