Candace Weber, Ph.D. is the Partnerships Director at the Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, where she leads the development, management, and delivery of strategic partnerships to bolster coalitions of early care and education advocates in Louisiana. She is also a highly sought-after thought-leader on strategies to improve early education workforce compensation in the State. Through data and research, Dr. Weber informs businesses, chambers of commerce, advocacy organizations, and early care and education professionals on efforts to both increase workforce participation and strengthen the economy.
Prior to joining the Policy Institute, Dr. Weber was a Fellow in the Broad Residency in Urban Education Program at the Louisiana Department of Education. While at the Department, she first served as the Director of Early Childhood Strategy and Operations where she was responsible for data analysis and increasing the number of families and children served by the State’s Child Care Assistance Program. In her final rotation, she served as the Director of Education Finance and supported the direction and management of the agency’s multi-billion-dollar budget.
Before Dr. Weber moved into the public sector, she spent over 15 years in Corporate America and has held several leadership roles across two Fortune 10 companies.
During her doctoral pursuit, she was named a 2022-23 Social Justice Scholar by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Her research addresses early childhood education policy, with a focus on efforts to improve access to early childhood systems at scale. She is particularly interested in the economic impacts of child care and policies aimed at supporting young children, their families, and the early education workforce.
Weber earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Nelson Mandela College of Government and Social Sciences at Southern University and A&M College; she holds a Master in Educational Leadership from the Broad Center at Yale School of Management, a Master of Business Administration from Pepperdine University, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Xavier University of Louisiana. Dr. Weber has dedicated her career to educational equity as a means of achieving social justice for communities and families with young children.