Meet the Scholars

Mina Addo

Mina Addo is a National Poverty Fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty at University of Wisconsin, currently in residence at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mina's interests include precarious work, consumer financial services, and the intersection between economic insecurity and well-being.

Binderiya Byambasuren

Binderiya is a PhD Candidate in Economics at American University. Binderiya's research interests include applied game theory, labor economics, and structural econometrics in the context of aging, family care, and gender. For undergraduate, Binderiya attended Mount Holyoke College and majored in Economics and Mathematics.

Frank Emeni

Frank is a graduate student in Economics at Howard University's Center on Race and Wealth, specializing in urban economics and real estate. Frank's research interests focus on housing markets, wealth inequality, and consumer purchase behavior. Frank is the 2021-2022 Just-Julian Graduate Research Scholar fellowship recipient. 

 Callie Freitag

Callie is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and a trainee with the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. Callie's work focuses on policies that address poverty and inequality among older adults and people with disabilities. Prior to beginning her doctoral program, Callie was a policy analyst in Sacramento, California.

Vikas PD Gawai

Vikas is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Vikas's research focuses on health, aging, human capital, and gender and racial inequality in the context of the US and India and aims to evaluate policies to understand whether they achieve their intended (or often unintended) outcomes.

Hope Harvey

Hope Harvey is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Kentucky. She holds a PhD in Social Policy and Sociology from Harvard University. Hope's research focuses on housing, families, and poverty and inequality. Her primary line of research uses multiple methods to study the experiences of families who live doubled-up in shared households.

Samsun Naher

Samsun is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of New Mexico. Samsun is an applied microeconomist with interests in public economics, health economics, and environmental economics. Samsun's research interests include study of health outcomes, racial disparities in healthcare, and disability claiming under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Eric Olson

Eric is a doctoral student in Consumer Sciences and Family Resource Management at The Ohio State University, and a practicing Certified Financial PlannerTM. Eric has worked as an Acquisitions Officer in the U.S. Air Force, taught finance and accounting courses at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and founded his independent financial planning firm in 2016. His current research focuses on behavioral finance and the impact of home equity on financial planning.

Cesia Sanchez

Cesia is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Cesia's fields are economic history and labor economics. Her work examines how economic shocks experienced by early career workers affect the retirement decisions of their parents.

 Cody Vaughn

Cody is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse. Cody received his PhD in economics from the University of Kentucky, is originally from Castalian Spring, Tennessee, and completed his Bachelors at Berea College. Cody's research focuses on US welfare programs, including TANF and SNAP, and their impact on child well-being.