Ellen Frank-Miller, Ph.D.

Dr. Frank-Miller is the Founder and CEO of the Workforce & Organizational Research Center (WORC). She has spent her 30-year career collaborating with investors, employers, national advocates, and community-based organizations to conduct rigorous impact evaluations and mixed-methods research focused on managerial practices and frontline job quality innovations that help build an inclusive economy where every worker has a job worth having. An organizational scholar by training, Dr. Frank-Miller excels at making scientific evidence accessible and usable for stakeholders, driving results through data. In her work, she illuminates and uplifts the lived experience of frontline workers, especially those most impacted by systemic inequality. Dr. Frank-Miller has worked across a wide range of industries including manufacturing, retail, hospitality, long-term care, early childhood education, social services, and health care, helping employers design, implement, and measure impact from new ways of working and programs that improve the quality of frontline jobs. Prior to launching WORC in 2021, she founded and led the Workforce Financial Stability Initiative at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis and spent 15 years in Human Resource consulting creating evidence-informed programs and policies. She has taught research methods at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of Chicago, where she earned her PhD.