Aaron Schroeder is currently serving in two professional capacities. He is serving as a Research Scientist at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Policy and Governance (IPG) directing research projects focused on the integration of child-relevant data systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia for the purpose of enhancing Virginia’s ability to successfully perform evidence-based program and policy evaluation . He is also serving as a Visiting Professor for Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy (CPAP) teaching Policy & Program Evaluation, Research Methods & Statistics, and Applied Management Technologies.

Dr. Schroeder has extensive experience in policy and program development and implementation, data systems analysis and integration, quantitative and qualitative methodologies of evaluation, and the general application of information technologies for the enhancement of public and private sector services.

From 2007 to the present, Dr. Schroeder has been directing a three-year, multi-agency, data integration project to link all public and private-sector data sources in the state of Virginia that contain information potentially pertaining to child care quality, its effects on future educational performance, its effects on future child health, and its relationship to federal support monies. On this project, Dr. Schroeder is working with data systems from the Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS), the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and the Virginia Department of Health (VDOH), as well as systems from numerous not-for-profit organizations.

From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Schroeder was the Director for the Center for Technology Deployment at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI), which by itself, was the fifth largest research center at Virginia Tech. As Principal Investigator, he managed approximately twenty research projects per year, twenty full-time and part-time staff members, eight graduate students, and approximately $2 million per year in research expenditures. The center performed extensive work in building partnerships with both public and private agencies to produce ‘live’ demonstration projects; the application of both managerial and technical evaluation tools to establish the likelihood of an inventions deployment into real-time environments; and information technologies and their application to Advanced Traveler Information Systems and Advanced Traffic Management Systems. In this capacity, Dr. Schroeder led the development, deployment, and first evaluation of the Travel Virginia initiative, now Virginia 511.

From 1998 to 2002, Dr. Schroeder was the Leader of the Information Applications Group at VTTI. The mission of the program was to utilize information technology and inter-institutional (e.g. public-private) partnerships to develop and deploy new or enhanced public services. Responsibilities include the management of existing program development and deployment projects, procurement of all program funding, management of program relationships with private and public-sector personnel and political representatives, and coordinating with other Institute research programs. In this capacity, Dr. Schroeder successfully worked to secure annual congressional funding for integrated technology projects in transportation. Also at this time, Dr. Schroeder developed, designed, and deployed, in cooperation with local non-profit organizations, Access to Rides, a database driven ride-sharing program for Virginia’s New River Valley.