Sarah Beu is a senior research analyst at Jobs for the Future. A member of the Research and Analytics Unit, she works on projects that focus on career pathways and employer perceptions and behaviors.
Specifically, Sarah explores factors that serve as barriers to career paths that don’t include a four-year college degree, as well as factors that ease the pursuit of alternative paths. She seeks to better understand employers’ perceptions and behaviors and gain insights into what they need to adopt more inclusive hiring practices.
Before joining JFF, Sarah was an evaluation specialist at the University of Michigan Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research. In that role, she led evaluations of research projects for large-scale community-based education initiatives. She also led successful grant writing efforts that secured funding for state-level programs from the U.S. Department of Education. She also facilitated training workshops on visualization, mixed-method designs, and logic models.
In addition, she has worked as an evaluation consultant for clients ranging from large-scale federal contractors to local nonprofits.
Sarah is a lead organizer of the Data for Public Good Symposium, an interdisciplinary effort to increase the use of data to promote social justice.
Sarah says her work in higher education has made her passionate about diversifying and improving options for all learners. She is also invested in promoting educational outcomes beyond graduation.
She has a bachelor’s degree in social work from Western Michigan University and a master’s degree in social work with a concentration in social policy and program evaluation from the University of Michigan.
Sarah loves all things creative—including dancing, music, and painting—and she’s always looking for an excuse to get outside and explore nature. She has a cat named Penelope Cruz.
