Sarah Font is an interdisciplinary researcher examining the impacts of the child welfare system and the criminal and juvenile legal systems on children and families. Her research primarily involves partnerships with state and local public agencies and the use of linked administrative data to inform agencies’ strengths, challenges, and priorities for reform. Her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and Arnold Ventures.
Sarah started out as a Child Protective Services caseworker in 2008, where she investigated allegations of child abuse and neglect. This experience sparked an interest in how systems can better serve and protect children. She went on to earn her PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2014 and then completed a NICHD postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin. She spent nine years as faculty at Penn State University as part of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network, earning tenure in the Department of Sociology and Criminology in 2021. She joined the Brown School in 2025.
Sarah Font
- Professor
- Email: font@wustl.edu
- Download CV
Areas of Focus:
- Child welfare systems
- Foster and kinship care
- Criminal and juvenile legal systems
- Child fatalities
- Parental substance use