Michelle Bezark
Deputy Director
Michelle Bezark is the Deputy Director at EC*REACH. She conducts research and writes about contemporary and historical early care and education (ECE) policy, governance, and administration. She is particularly interested in how individual families and practitioners experience federal policies and what social, economic, and political conditions lead to effective policy changes for families with young children.
Michelle holds a doctorate in U.S. History from Northwestern University, specializing in law and social welfare policy. She has won numerous awards to support her research and has published her work widely, including in the Journal of Policy History, the Washington Post, and TIME. Her new book, Making Babies Count: The Sheppard-Towner Act and Building the Modern Welfare State (Cambridge University Press, 2026) provides the first comprehensive account of the triumphs and follies of the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921-the first federal policy aimed at improving health outcomes for mothers and babies.
