I have the power to decide to take the long way around.

Pronouns: she/her

Emma Carpenter, PhD, MSW, is the Director of Research & Evaluation at Power to Decide, where she leads where leads our evaluation studies. Previously, she served as a Health Science Policy Analyst at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where she led several NIH and HHS-wide initiatives. Her portfolio included leading a working group to implement recommendations for improving research involving pregnant and lactating populations, as well as the Data and Research Subgroup of the HHS Reproductive Healthcare Access Taskforce.

Emma holds a PhD in Social Welfare and an MSW from the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. Her research centers on reproductive health experiences among sexual and gender minority communities, with past work including a multi-site study of contraceptive use among sexual minority women and her dissertation examining pregnancy desires and decision-making among queer women and gender expansive individuals.