Maria Heidkamp
Director of Program Development and Senior Researcher
Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers University

Maria Heidkamp is the Director of Program Development and Senior Researcher at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Since joining the Center in 2006, she has focused primarily on issues relating to dislocated workers, long-term unemployed job seekers, older workers, and job seekers with disabilities. She is currently leading the Heldrich Center team providing assistance under the CARES Act for the NJ Small Business Development Center to identify strategies to help small businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. She was the founding director of the Heldrich Center’s New Start Career Network, an initiative launched by the Heldrich Center in late 2015 that has assisted over 6,000 older, long-term unemployed New Jerseyans. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Heidkamp worked overseas for the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Agency for International Development as the Director of the Labor Market Transition Project in Hungary, helping the Hungarian government develop policies and programs to respond to the mass layoffs caused by privatization and restructuring during the post-communism transition years. She has worked as a Policy Analyst for the National Governors Association covering a range of workforce issues and served as Director of the Wisconsin Labor-Management Council. She has a Bachelor's degree in Government from Cornell University and a Master's degree from New York University, where her thesis topic was The Role of Public Libraries in Assisting Job Seekers During and Since the Great Recession.

 

 

 

 

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