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About

Cathy Burack is an education researcher whose work centers on informal STEM education, youth development, and the long-term impacts of after-school programming on students' academic and career trajectories. She is best known for her rigorous longitudinal investigations into whether extracurricular robotics programs meaningfully expand the pipeline of young people entering science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Her most-cited work, "Do After-School Robotics Programs Expand the Pipeline into STEM Majors in College?" (2019, 29 citations), tackled a critical question in education policy at a time when policymakers were increasingly investing in informal STEM initiatives without clear evidence of their downstream effects. Her follow-up seven-year longitudinal study (2022, 14 citations) is particularly notable for its methodological ambition, tracking participants from after-school participation through their freshman college experience to assess lasting program impacts. At a moment when STEM workforce concerns dominate educational discourse, Burack's research provides rare empirical grounding for conversations about program effectiveness and equity. Her sustained focus on evidence-based evaluation makes her a valuable voice for educators, policymakers, and researchers seeking to understand what truly moves the needle for underrepresented youth in STEM pathways.