In 2009, President Obama invited her to serve as an advisor to The White House Council on Women and Girls, and in 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed her chair of the Global Education First Initiative's Technical Advisory Group formed to raise the political profile of global education.
[9][10] Winthrop obtained a BA from Swarthmore College in 1996, an MA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in 2001, and a PhD.
[11][12] From 2001 to 2009, Winthrop served as a senior technical advisor for education at the International Rescue Committee in New York.
[15] At Brookings, Winthrop worked with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Office of Global Women's Issues to design a girls’ education collaborative focused on next generation gender equality.
[18][19] In 2014, Winthrop convened with UNESCO Institute of Statistics a global task force with participation from over one hundred countries to develop a shared agenda around prioritizing and measuring learning outcomes.