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Jennifer Jirous-Rapp is a TA consultant with more than 25 years of experience in education and workforce development at the local and state level. Her primary responsibilities at AIR include providing expertise and guidance on several state-level and national level Career and Technical Education (CTE) projects including the CTE Research Network—led by AIR and its partners, the Association for Career and Technical Education, Jobs for the Future, and Vanderbilt University—which seeks to meet this need by increasing the number of impact studies and strengthening the capacity of the field to conduct and use rigorous research.

Dr. Jirous-Rapp is also part of the Increasing Integrated Education and Training (IET) Opportunities for Adults project team contributing to the development of an on-line toolkit and technical assistance for Adult Education providers. The Increasing IET Opportunities for Adults technical assistance project (funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education) assists states as they build and expand IET programs to strengthen the educational attainment and employment outcomes of adult learners. The project provides foundational technical assistance resources and professional development opportunities to support Adult Education practitioners as they identify, design, and offer IET programs across the country.

Dr. Jirous-Rapp is part of the State Apprenticeship Expansion Grantee Technical Apprenticeship project team supporting multiple technical assistance activities, including serving as a state grantee coach. She has facilitated diversity, equity, and inclusion training to apprenticeship grantees and their partners and developed case studies on programs that increase women’s access to and outcomes in apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs.

Previously, Dr. Jirous-Rapp worked in state-level administration with various state agencies in Colorado. As the Apprenticeship/Experiential Learning Coordinator at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, she was responsible for the implementation of the State Apprenticeship Expansion grant and as the State Career Pathways Manager in the Office of Adult Education she provided direct oversight of a state grant program to integrate career pathways into Adult Education. Before these roles, she was the STEM/Arts/IT program director for CTE in Colorado.