Dr. Christopher King is a senior research scientist, director of the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources and a lecturer at The University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, where he currently holds the Mike Hogg Professorship in Urban Management. He is a labor economist with nearly four decades experience at the international, national, state and local level, conducting policy and program analysis, designing innovative programs, evaluating impacts and measuring the benefits and costs of education, employment and training interventions. He has written widely on education, workforce, and social policy. He has received recognition for his teaching, including the prestigious Texas Exes Teaching Award in 2007 and the LBJ School Dean’s Excellence Award in 1994, and, for his contributions to workforce policy, the Central Texas Workforce Edge Award in 2008.

He is directing the Central Texas Student Futures Project and the Dual-Generation Strategy Initiative, as well as evaluations of locally funded workforce services for the City of Austin, Travis County and Workforce Solutions-Capital Area Workforce Board. He also leads a team designing and analyzing the implementation of a sectoral jobs strategy for low-skilled, low-income parents of children served by Tulsa’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs working with a multi-disciplinary team from Harvard, Northwestern and Columbia Universities. He serves on the boards of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, The Austin Project Board and English@Work, as well as the Capital Area Economic Development District Council, and the Rutgers University NTAR Leadership Institute’s Research Advisory Panel, among others.

Dr. King was assistant professor of economics at the University of Utah (1973-1976), an economist with the U.S. Secretary of Labor (1976-1980), and director of Research, Demonstration and Evaluation for job training programs in the Texas Governor’s Office (1983-1985). He has a B.A. in economics from The University of Texas at Austin and both an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University.