Financial Findings Podcast

The Financial Findings Podcast is a series devleoped by the UW RDRC that features interviews with researchers about household finance, financial security, and retirement and disability research and the implications for policy, practice, and relevance for the general public. The podcast series is hosted by Jonathon Ferguson .

Episode 11: Interview with Dr. Hyun Ju Kim | Spring 2025 In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Hyun Ju Kim. Dr. Kim is a project director at University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability. Her research interests include quantitatively evaluating Social Security disability programs with a focus on economic mobility and financial security for vulnerable populations by race/ethnicity, gender, and immigrant status. She intends to expand her research to explore barriers and facilitators of using Achieving Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts among recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). She holds a Ph.D. And a Master of Public Policy from George Mason University. In this podcast episode we discuss Dr. Kim’s research project titled, “Who Will Benefit from the 2024 Able Account Adjustment Act?”

Episode 10: Interview with Dr. Vanessa Delgado | Winter 2025 In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Vanessa Delgado. Dr. Delgado is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington State University. Broadly, her work explores the incorporation pathways of low-income Latino/a immigrant families. She employs qualitative methods to examine how immigration laws exacerbate social and economic inequality among low-income Latino/a immigrants and their children. Her research has been published in Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociological Forum, Sociology Compass, Socius, Social Sciences, Law & Policy, Journal of Latinos and Education, and featured in public outlets such as Latino Rebels, CalMatters, California Health Report, and Northwest News Network. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine and was formally a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University. In this episode, we discuss Vanessa’s research project titled, “Stratified Private Safety Nets: How Legal Status Shapes Financial Contributions by Immigrant-Origin Young Adults.”

Episode 9: Interview with Dr. Erik Hembre | Fall 2024 In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Erik Hembre, who is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. His research interests include housing policy, public finance, and the social safety net. He has published research on topics such as homeownership, mortgage default, housing tax benefits, and housing quality. Erik previously worked at the University of Illinois-Chicago and ran the UW-RDRC Social Insurance Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) under the UW-RDRC. He received his doctorate in economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his bachelor’s from Saint Olaf College. Listen as we discuss Erik’s research which was recently published in the Journal of Economics, A rising tide lifts all homes? Housing consumption trends for low-income households since the 1980s .

Episode 8: Interview with Dr. Vikas Gawai | Summer 2024 In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Vikas PD Gawai, who is a member of the JSIT 2022 cohort and recipient of a JSIT research award . He completed his Ph.D. in Applied Economics in June 2024 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Vikas is going to join the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Health Economist. His research focuses on policy evaluations related to health, aging, and human capital in the United States and India. He studies how technologies like high-speed internet (Broadband) or agricultural innovations like the Green Revolution affect health, human capital, access to social security, and overall health and financial well-being. Additionally, Vikas investigates the long-term effects of early-life shocks on later-life health and well-being. Some of his research work has been published and is under review in academic journals. Vikas holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from India.

Episode 7: Interview with Dr. Yvonne Hampton | Spring 2024
In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Yvonne Hampton. Dr. Hampton is a Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Retirement and Disability Research Center, and also serves as a Managing Health Economist at Johns Hopkins Health. Dr. Hampton's research interests include the relationship between finances and health, retirement, health insurance, and housing affordability. She holds a PhD in Human Environmental Sciences and a Master's degree in Personal Financial Planning from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Additionally, she holds a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a Master's in Business from Avila University, and a BS in Economics from Kansas State University.

Episode 6: Interview with Dr. Daniel Schneider and Dr. Leah Abrams | Winter 2024
In this episode we meet and interview Dr. Daniel Schneider and Dr. Leah Abrams. Dr. Schneider is a Professor of Sociology at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has written on class inequality in parenting, the role of economic resources in marriage, divorce, and fertility, the effects of the Great Recession, and the scope of household financial fragility. Dr. Abrams is an Assistant Professor of Community Health at the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. Her research and teaching interests include social epidemiology, health policy, population aging, mortality trends, work/retirement, and mental health.
We discuss their research project titled Older Workers, Working Longer? The Role of Precarious Work.

Episode 5: Interview with Dr. Anita Mukherjee | Fall 2023
In this episode, we meet and interview Dr. Anita Mukherjee, an Associate professor in the Department of Risk & Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business at UW-Madison. Professor Mukherjee conducts research on public policy related to prisons and the opioid crisis, and on household finance, retirement, and aging. Her research covers both the US and emerging markets. We will discuss Anita’s research project titled Set It and Forget It? Financing Retirement in an Age of Defaults .

Episode 4: Interview with Dr. Stephanie Moulton | Summer 2023
In this episode, we meet and interview Dr. Stephanie Moulton. Dr. Moulton has served as a PI on five different research projects funded through the CFS RDRC. We discuss her team's current work titled The COVID-19 Pandemic and Older Adults’ Employment and Economic Security: Insights from Earnings and Credit Panel Data.

Episode 3: Interview with Dr. Lisa Klein Vogel and Dr. Molly Costanzo | Spring 2023
In this episode, we meet and interview Dr.Klein Vogel and Dr. Costanzo. We will discuss their research project titled All in the Family: Parents of Children with Disabilities and Retirement .

Episode 2: Interview with Jill Hoiting | Spring 2023
In this episode, we meet and interview Jill Hoiting. Jill is a PHD student in the Social Welfare program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. We discuss Jill’s research project titled I Don’t Like all of Those Fees—Pragmatism about Financial Services Among Low-Income Parents .

Episode 1: Interview with Dr. Cliff Robb | Spring 2023
In this episode, discussion centers on Dr. Cliff Robb’s research project, Enhancing Trust in the Social Security Administration and E-Government Among People Targeted by Fraud . Dr. Robb is the chair for the department of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a professor in the School of Human Ecology. Dr. Robb studies consumer financial decision-making, with an emphasis on financial knowledge and capability.