Ed Ratledge is a 1972 graduate of the University of Delaware (BS, MA in economics) and currently is the director of the Center for Applied Demography & Survey Research (CADSR). The Center conducts survey research and policy research for a wide range of federal, state, and local government agencies and non-profits.

As a policy fellow and associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Ed has accumulated more than thirty years of experience working with state and local government at both policy and operational levels. His current work spans a variety of areas including healthcare, transportation, economic development, and public finance. He was a central figure in the development of the Delaware Health Information Network, which was the first statewide health information exchange in the country. Ed is a founding member of DEFAC (1977), the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, which produces all revenue and expenditure forecasts and define the state budget parameters.  The common thread between these diverse projects is the integration of methods from economics, statistics, demography, and computer science.

Ed is currently working with William Boyer on a series of books dealing with public policy as practiced in Delaware over the past 50 years. The first volume, Delaware Politics and Government, was published in 2009. The next volume Pivotal Policies in Delaware, which examines key policy decisions and associated impacts, was published in January 2014. The third volume, Growing Business in Delaware: Politics of Job Creation in a small state is forthcoming in 2015 and the fourth currently under construction is an analysis of public education and public policy associated with the system.

Together with his colleague Joan Jacoby and others he has conducted applied research on prosecution throughout the United States. This research has focused on the theoretical and practical aspects of the prosecutor’s role in the criminal justice system from basic screening decisions to post conviction strategies. Two books are currently in progress.

While Ed was born in Alabama during in 1943 and thus is not a native Delawarean, his family traces its roots in the state from the 1700's. He grew up there and returned to finish school at the University of Delaware following military service in Vietnam in 1970.