Cristiana Orlando

BA, MSc

Principal Associate

cristiana.orlando@employment-studies.co.uk

Now a Principal Associate, Cristiana joined IES as a Health Foundation Research Fellow in September 2020. Prior to joining IES, Cristiana was a consultant at a public and third sector research organisation specialising in employment, health, welfare and education. Her main interests include youth transitions and the wider determinants of employment outcomes for young people, including labour market challenges, job quality, and protective and risk factors in making transitions.

During her time as the Health Foundation Research Fellow Cristiana designed and led a three-year policy research programme focused on young people’s employment as a social determinant of health. As part of this work, she led large-scale mixed methods research with young people, employers, and stakeholders across national and local government, developing policy reports and practitioner toolkits aimed at understanding and improving access to good quality youth employment. During this time Cristiana set up and coordinated two place-based partnerships to test findings from the research, a Youth Advisory Group, putting youth voice at the centre of research design and dissemination, and a Learning and Sharing Network, counting over 100 members from the youth employment landscape, to disseminate the research and facilitate opportunities for cross-collaboration.

Beyond her work for the Health Foundation, some of Cristiana’s other projects at IES include: a systematic review for the Youth Endowment Fund on the impact of summer programmes on the educational and employment outcomes of disadvantaged young people; a rapid evidence assessment of Systems Change approaches and evaluations for Youth Futures Foundation; an NIHR grant collaboration with the University of Cambridge, University of Leeds, and University of Sheffield focused on understanding how employers can support better health behaviours among young adults in the workplace; and the development of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority All Age Careers Blueprint.

Education

2018	University of Oxford	MSc, Comparative Social Policy
2017	University of Cambridge	BA, Human, Social and Political Sciences

Career

2018-2020

Consultant, Rocket Science Ltd