Chris M. Herbst is a Foundation Professor in the School of Public Affairs (SPA) and a faculty affiliate in the School Social Work in the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University. He also recently held the George Soros Visiting Chair in the School of Public Policy at Central European University (Vienna).

Herbst's research focuses on the economics of child care and early childhood education, early human capital formation, and social safety net policy. His work studies the impact of policy on the well-being of children and parents, examining its effect on female employment, health trajectories, and children’s cognitive and behavioral development using theoretical and methodological tools from economics and developmental psychology. Dr. Herbst’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed outlets, including the Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Urban Economics, Educational Researcher, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly and has been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and other entities.

This work has been featured in major news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic, TIME, and Bloomberg. He has also spoken about child care and early education as a guest on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show and The Indicator as well as Shankar Vedantam’s Hidden Brain and KJZZ’s The Show.