As a Senior Researcher and Project Director at WestEd, BethAnn Berliner helps build the capacity of schools and community-based organizations to improve education, health, social service, and youth development programs and outcomes for students pre-K-12+. Her areas of expertise include cross-sector collaboration, dropout prevention, and school culture and climate, and she bring extensive experience working with highly-mobile students, students in foster care, students with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.

As a result of her leadership, Berliner’s research on dropout recovery and students in foster care have been widely cited, influencing federal and state policy and local practice. Working more directly with underserved communities, her work has resulted in a number of beneficial after-school, tutoring, mentoring, gang prevention, counseling, family support, and youth development programs.

With the Regional Educational Laboratory West, Berliner leads a research partnership with schools, districts, school-based health centers, and other agencies in California’s rural Central Valley focused on improving cross-sector approaches to improving student outcomes, the Central Valley Rural Education and Health Alliance (REHA).  

Prior to joining WestEd, Berliner directed programs for youth offenders and victims, students with disabilities, and homeless families. She was also an archivist and curated numerous historical photograph and manuscript collections and authored studies of Progressive Era school reform.

She is an active volunteer and board member at several youth-serving agencies.

She received an MA in social history from the University of Colorado and an MPA in public policy from San Francisco State University.