As director of the Population Council's new Poverty, Gender, and Youth program, Wendy Baldwin works with the Council's regional directors and professional staff to implement program- and policy-oriented research to improve the future of young people. Child marriage is one of the research areas of the Poverty, Gender, and Youth program. Baldwin also represents the Council to governments, donor agencies, and population and development organizations. The Population Council is an international nongovernmental organization involved in research on a broad array of topics affecting the well-being of populations in the developing world.

Baldwin joined the Population Council in 2006 after lengthy service at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During her tenure at the NIH she led the development of programs on adolescent childbearing and sexual behavior and AIDS risk behaviors. She has testified many times before Congress on topics from stem cells to adolescent pregnancy and has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Department of Health and Human Services. For the past 20 years she has worked with the World Health Organization, serving since 1988 as the chair and collaborating scientist of the Steering Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research on Reproductive Health.