I am an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver. I am also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin.
I study U.S. policies—including safety net and social insurance programs, as well as immigration policy—and examine how they affect outcomes of both foreign-born and U.S.-born. My work has been cited in numerous policy contexts and by major media outlets, and has been published in top economics journals including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Labor Economics. I earned a B.S. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis.
In Spring 2022 I founded the Equitable Policy Research Lab. I currently serve as the Associate Chair for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the CU Denver Economics department. I also founded and chair the EDI committee in the Economics department. I co-lead the Research Working Group within the Children Thrive Action Network. Finally, I am the chair of the Women in Economics Community for APPAM.
