Rachel Sheffield focused on welfare, marriage and family, and education as policy analyst in the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

Sheffield wrote regularly on the family, religion and civil society (http://blog.heritage.org/category/family-and-religion/) for The Foundry, Heritage’s policy blog, and also contributes to news and commentary sites such as The Daily Caller, Townhall.com and National Review Online.

Her major research papers include “Universal Preschool’s Empty Promises (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/03/universal-preschools-empty-promises)" and “Understanding Poverty in America (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor)". Sheffield’s work has been cited by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times, among other major media outlets. She appears regularly on radio programs across the country, and also speaks to student groups and audiences on Capitol Hill.

Sheffield joined Heritage in 2010 as a research assistant. She received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in marriage, family and human development from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

While a student, Sheffield worked as a research assistant for the university’s National Healthy Marriage Resource Center. She also interned at the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A native of Southern California, she currently resides in Silver Spring, Md.