As Director of Programs, Renée leads the Burke Foundation’s program team and guides strategy across its First 1,000 Days initiative, which spans maternal and child health, early childhood development, and health care transformation. She also manages a portfolio of innovative grants and partnerships, working closely with community organizations, health systems, and state agencies to design, scale, and sustain programs that deliver measurable impact for New Jersey’s youngest children and families.
With more than 25 years of experience across philanthropy, research, and the nonprofit sector, Renée has focused her career on strengthening evidence-based, relationship-driven models of care that improve outcomes for families and advance equity across systems. She has held roles spanning program design, evaluation, and systems change, such as leading the development, implementation, and sustainability of an evidence-based maternal and child home visiting model in the Northeast, and contributing to various state and federal mixed-methods evaluations of early childhood, nutrition, and after-school programs at Mathematica Policy Research.
Throughout her career, Renée has remained passionate about promoting health, education, and economic equity for children and families so that they can thrive. She deeply values using thoughtful analysis and a social justice lens to guide policymaking, systems change, and philanthropic investment to achieve lasting impact.
Renée holds a B.A. from Haverford College and a master’s degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and enjoys travel, skiing, and exploring hidden gems across Pennsylvania and New Jersey.