Meet our JSIT 2024 Junior Scholars

Pictured from Left to Right Across Rows:

Sakshi Bhardwaj will earn her Ph.D. in Economics in May 2024 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Following her PhD, she will begin her career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the fall of 2024. She is an applied microeconomist specializing in Labor and Public Economics, particularly the effects of social safety net policies on low-income populations in the United States. In her job market paper, titled “Income during Infancy Reduces Crime: Evidence from a Discontinuity in Tax Benefits,” Sakshi explores the impact of augmenting the income of economically disadvantaged parents shortly after childbirth—a time of acute financial need and high stress—on their involvement in criminal activities. Utilizing administrative data from Pennsylvania, she finds that this income transfer reduces fathers' involvement in the criminal justice system, thereby preventing disruptions to the family.

Suchika Chopra is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Krea University. She completed her Ph.D. from the Department of Economics, Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. She is an applied microeconomist with research interests in health economics and labor economics. She works on topics related to the monetary and non-monetary costs of health shocks, disparities in healthcare utilization, and gender gaps. Prior to her current role, she gained valuable experience at institutions like the Reserve Bank of India and Hindustan Times.

Georgina Maku Cobla is a Ph.D. Public Policy student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a strong foundation in Economics. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a Master of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Ghana.
With years of experience in Economics Research, Georgina has spent over six years contributing valuable insights at the World Bank. Throughout her tenure, she has worked across various sectors including Macroeconomics, Trade, and Investment (MTI); Health, Nutrition, and Population; Education; Gender Data Production; Labor; and Social Protection global practices. She is passionate about leveraging economic principles to inform and shape public policies that impact vulnerable populations. Georgina is inclined to continue making meaningful contributions to the intersection of economics and public policy.

Jennifer Daniels is a National Poverty Fellow, a postdoctoral researcher a part of the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), in residence at the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Division of Economic Independence (DEI). She earned her Ph.D. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. Jennifer's research focuses on social equity, poverty, and the provision of and access to social welfare programs, with a particular interest in examining the challenges faced by low-income working-aged adults without dependents. Her dissertation research investigated state-level discretionary decision-making in the administration of SNAP and racial inequity in the receipt of benefits for able-bodied adults without dependents. Jennifer also holds a Master of Social Work degree and actively engages in diversity, equity, and inclusion work for various non-profit organizations. She served as an Equity Fellow at the U.S. General Services Administration (OES) in 2021–2022.

Ngoc Dao is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the College of Business and Public Management, Kean University. Her research focuses on the economics of retirement and caregiving, with a focus on the relationship between public policies and older or disabled adults’ retirement behaviors and informal care needs. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and CFS RDRC Wisconsin. Dao is also a research fellow at the Wisconsin RDRC since 2019.

Catria Gadwah-Meaden is a Policy Analysis Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an Assistant Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Her primary research interests exist at the intersection of public, labor, and health economics and center on the social safety net and the population(s) it is intended to serve. She is particularly interested in multiprogram participation, questions about how programs stack and interact, and heterogeneous treatment effects of social policy. In her broader RAND research, she has worked on topics relating to veteran policy, disability policy, the social determinants of health, and economic equity. Catria holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematical Economics from Colgate University.

Salpy Kanimian is a doctoral candidate in Economics at Rice University. Before her studies at Rice, she earned a dual degree in Mathematics and Economics from the American University of Beirut. Her research focuses on healthcare economics, industrial organization, and public economics. Currently, her work investigates policy design in publicly funded and privately provided U.S. health insurance markets. Beyond her academic pursuits, Salpy actively contributes to the scholarly community by co-organizing a weekly virtual seminar called PhD-EVS. She is also a member of the NextGen Council for the Foundation of Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), where she serves as an advisory body in developing impact evaluation frameworks.

Pyung Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he was admitted with the highest honors. His research focuses on evidence-based policy design leveraging spatial data science. Using GIS and spatial analysis, he explores the features of inclusive neighborhoods for populations with health disparities to pinpoint areas requiring policy interventions. Employing spatial econometrics, he examines how the causal impacts of policy interventions differ based on neighborhood characteristics. Currently, he is researching spatial disparities in the community inclusion of individuals with disabilities through a project funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). Additionally, his doctoral dissertation comprises three essays that delve into the impacts of neighborhoods on disability inclusion, with a particular emphasis on education, employment, and community living.

Lynn Mogan is a PhD candidate in economics at The University of Texas at Dallas. She employs both applied econometrics and applied microeconomics in her research. Her research interests lie at the intersection of health, labor, and public economics, with a particular focus on Social Security Disability Insurance in the United States.

Orlando Parrales is a Ph.D. student in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California Berkeley and a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in New York. Before coming to Berkeley, he worked as a social worker with a homeless outreach team in New York City for several years, providing case management services to homeless New Yorkers sleeping in the public transit system. His research focuses on examining homeless shelter access and utilization in older homeless adults aged 50 and over, particularly in older Latinos.

Alec Rhodes is a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of economic inequality and financial insecurity for individuals, households, and communities. Much of Alec’s scholarship is motivated by questions of how power and social policies shape inequality, with a focus on credit, wealth, debt, labor markets, and health.

Erica Robinson is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work. Her research explores policies and social factors leading to economic stability among historically marginalized groups across the life course. Her research experience includes serving as the Principal Investigator (PI) for a research project titled “Transportation's Impact on Education and Employment Attainment: The Experiences of a Public Housing Development Residents Who Relocated to Mixed-Income Communities” funded by the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) through the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Erica's work experience includes nonprofit service assisting underemployed and unemployed individuals attain credentials toward living wage jobs, academic advising, and adjunct instructing.

Vinithia Rachel Varghese is an applied microeconomist specializing in Development Economics and Economics of Education and has dedicated her research efforts to evaluating interventions and policies aimed at closing schooling access and quality gaps in developing countries. Having earned her PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2023, she is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics at Alma College, Michigan. In past projects she has examined an adult education program, India’s Right to Education Act and vertical school consolidation policy. She's interested in studying long-term health and social impacts of WIC for children, the effect of investment counseling on retirement saving habits, and the impact of regional variation in the availability of clinics accepting Medicaid patients on medical access and long-term mental health outcomes.