About Us — The Lab @ DC

Photo Description: *The Lab’s logo with the addition of some past and present team members’ faces. The dots are in the shape of Washington, DC.*

Who are we?

The Lab @ DC partners with agencies in DC government to help design, target, start up, and evaluate District programs with a resident-centered lens. Our projects span education, transportation, housing, and more. Learn more about our methods and how we select projects.

We are an applied research and design team embedded in DC government and composed of civic designer researchers, social scientists, and data scientists. Our team members are primarily full-time DC government employees with deep technical expertise. A few part-time faculty and research assistants from local universities supplement our core team. The Lab @ DC is centralized in the Office of Budget and Performance Management, which is in the Office of the City Administrator. We also have agency-based team members at the District Department of Transportation, the DC Department of Human Services, and the Metropolitan Police Department. Our Director reports to DC’s Budget Director to ensure that the District’s policy decisions are informed by the best evidence from research and resident perspectives.

Our Mission

DC residents deserve a government that asks questions, tests policies, and iteratively improves how it serves the community. The Lab @ DC meets our city's most critical problems with scientific methods, civic design, and authentic partnership with District agencies and residents.

Our Values

Everyone who lives or works in DC should be treated equitably and with dignity. We honor each individual’s personhood, center services on residents’ needs, and prioritize communities that have been historically underserved because of race, class, gender, sexual preference or any protected trait.

We must approach our work with humility, a commitment to service, and a curiosity to learn. We admit what we don’t know, put our neighbors first, and thoughtfully develop and test hypotheses.

We should be transparent and accessible to residents about how government works and what it provides. We share our processes and findings in a clear and straightforward way.

We only succeed when we engage in real collaboration with DC government agencies and residents. We must first recognize the complicated realities of DC government service delivery and the lived experience of residents before we tailor our approach to address the problem.

Science only serves residents when it is open, accessible, and evolving. We pre-register our hypotheses and methods, provide project descriptions that are inviting instead of othering, and learn from the experiences and critiques of residents and experts in any field. Above all, we provide the best scientific information available to leaders in time to make decisions that affect resident’s lives.

When doing serious, impactful public service, it is not only permissible, but productive to find opportunities to have fun along the way.