Dr. Karla Strong is the Associate Director of State and Community Relations at the SERVE Center; as well as the Co-Director for the National Center for Homeless Education (NCHE). Karla also co-directs the Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program (NESP). She began her career as a Social Worker with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services and thus has knowledge of working with vulnerable populations through working in that capacity. Before coming to SERVE in 2003, she held a 2-year Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Social Organization of Schools to extend her dissertation research on parent and family involvement. Through her Region 6 Comprehensive Center (RC6) work, she continues to work on family and community engagement projects.

Karla is also an experienced evaluator; her projects have included evaluations of Early College High School projects, student support services, violence prevention initiatives, and STEM initiatives. Karla has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.