Garstka is a senior research associate at Planning and Learning Technologies in Arlington, Va. She has more than 12 years of professional research and project management experience conducting basic and applied research and evaluations in the social sciences and social service systems.

She has extensive methodological and statistical data analysis experience and expertise, including working with multiple state and agency-specific management information systems to extract and analyze performance indicators, CFSR scores, and other progress benchmarks. Garstka leads the national cross-site evaluation of the Quality Improvement Center on Child Welfare Privatization.