Megan Toohey

Megan Toohey is the Managing Director of Children and Families at the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL). She leads the discovery, testing, and scaling of solutions in collaboration with state and local governments to reduce child poverty, expand access to public benefits, improve behavioral and maternal-infant health outcomes, prevent child protection system involvement, and strengthen kinship care. These efforts have contributed to measurable impacts, including a ~50% reduction in the share of children in residential care in Michigan.

In previous roles at the GPL, Megan led similar efforts across human services, homeless services, and criminal and juvenile justice, including a redesign of procurement and contracting practices for $294M of human and social services in Chicago. Prior to joining the GPL, she held roles spanning project management, quality assurance, research, philanthropy, and direct service, focused on behavioral health, homeless services, and public health. Megan holds a Master of Social Work from Boston College and a BA in Psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She is based in Chicago.