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Doctoral Fellows for 2009-2010 The program selects 8-12 new Doctoral Fellows each year from the participating Harvard Ph.D. programs. Doctoral Fellows join the program in their second or third year and maintain their affiliation through the dissertation stage.
P r o f i l e s Sam Abrams (Government, G7)
Weihua An (Sociology, G4) Christopher Bail (Sociology, G7)
Lucy Barnes (Political Economy & Government, G6)
Deirdre Bloome (Sociology & Social Policy, G3)
Lorenzo Casaburi (Economics, G3)
Charlotte Cavaillé (Government & Social Policy, G2)
Anmol Chaddha (Sociology & Social Policy, G4)
Jacqueline Chattopadhyay (Government & Social Policy, G5).
Victor Chen (Sociology & Social Policy, G7)
Jacqueline Cooke-Rivers (African and African-American Studies, G4)
Porsha Cropper (Government & Social Policy, G4)
David Deming (Public Policy, G5)
Jeff Denis (Sociology, G6)
Nicole Deterding (Sociology & Social Policy, G3)
Will Dobbie (Public Policy, G3)
Ethan Fosse (Sociology, G6)
Nathan Fosse (Sociology, G7)
Bernard L. Fraga (Government & Social Policy, G2)
Amanda Garrett (Government, G4)
Sara Sternberg Greene (Sociology & Social Policy, G3)
Benjamin Goodrich (Government & Social Policy, G7)
Elizabeth Greenwood (Economics, G3)
Michael Henderson (Government & Social Policy, G4)
John Horton (Public Policy, G4)
David Hureau (Sociology & Social Policy, G2)
Victoria Levin (Public Policy, G5)
Jeremy Levine (Sociology, G2)
Katherine Levine (Government & Social Policy, G3)
David Mericle (Economics, G5)
Joshua Mitchell (Economics, G5)
Ann Owens (Sociology & Social Policy, G5)
Sabrina Pendergrass (Sociology, G8)
Melanie Penny (Sociology & Social Policy, HLS-3)
Sanjay Pinto (Sociology & Social Policy, G5)
Brenna Marea Powell (Government & Social Policy, G6)
Matthew Resseger (Economics, G3)
Viridiana Rios (Government, G3)
Brendan Saloner (Health Policy, G3)
Daniel Schlozman (Government & Social Policy, G7)
Tracey Shollenberger (Sociology & Social Policy, G2)
Daniel Schrage (Sociology, G5)
Daniel Shoag (Economics, G4)
Graziella Silva (Sociology, G7)
Benjamin Sosnaud (Sociology, G2)
Jennifer Sykes-McLaughlin (Sociology and Social Policy, G7)
Laura Tach (Sociology & Social Policy, G6)
Van Tran (Sociology & Social Policy, G6)
Ugo Troiano (Economics, G2)
Tom Vogl (Economics, G4)
Jessica Welburn (Sociology, G6)
Elizabeth Wikler (Health Policy, G2)
K. Miya Woolfalk (Government & Social Policy, G4)
Crystal Yang (Economics, G2)
Clara Zverina (Public Policy, G2)
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Sam Abrams is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government and is a research fellow at the Hamilton Center for Political Economy at NYU. He was formerly at Canadian Research Fellow and a tutor in Cabot House. He has written on issues of school choice, educational testing, federalism, voting, public opinion and electoral behavior. His current work focuses on the role of money in elections, partisanship and American political culture. He has just completed a large scale project examining the disconnect between politicians and the political class and the majority of Americans. His dissertation deals with the rationale for voting in comparative perspective. A native of Philadelpia, Sam enjoys cycling, jazz, and watching baseball in his leisure time.
Weihua is a PhD student in sociology, doctoral fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy at Kennedy School of Government and graduate associate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He holds a master degree in statistics from Harvard and has strong interests in quantitative methods, especially causal inference, social network analysis, and Bayesian statistics. In sociological domains, he specializes in formal and statistical analysis of inequality and social policy, and sociology of health. Currently he is working on several projects, including Bayesian propensity score estimators to incorporate the estimation uncertainty in the propensity score into causal inference, statistical methods to separate network effects (selection, affection and
Christopher A. Bail is a 7th year PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology. His research compares the integration of Muslims in the U.S. and U.K. since 9/11 through 1) analysis of elites in the policy making process; 2) network analysis of social movements; and, 3) longitudinal qualitative interviews. Bail's previous studies of symbolic boundaries and anti-racism have appeared in the 
Lucy Barnes grew up in the UK, and received her BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Trinity College, Oxford in 2003. After spending a year teaching in France, joined the Political Economy and Government program in 2004. Her research interests focus on the comparative political economy of the advanced democracies, and the interaction between economic inequality and political institutions in the determination of government policy. As a member of Harvard’s ultimate Frisbee team, Lucy spends much of her spare time chasing a plastic disc around a field. 
Deirdre is a PhD student in Sociology and Social Policy and graduate Affiliate with the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a BA in Sociology with Honors and holds a Certificate in Demography from Princeton University's Office of Population Research and a Masters in Statistics from Harvard. Deirdre's research interests include income and wealth inequality, intergenerational mobility, and quantitative methods. She is a Jacob K. Javits Fellow and a Doctoral Fellow with the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality.
Lorenzo is a third-year Ph.D. student in Economics. He grew up in Naples and received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Bologna in 2004. His research interests focus on development economics, social networks and international trade. Before joining the doctoral program at Harvard, he worked for two years in Western Kenya for the Poverty Action Lab coordinating the randomized evaluation of health and education projects. Previous research also focused on how manufacturing firms in Italy and in developing countries react to increased exposure to global competition. Lorenzo is a Doctoral Fellow at the Sustainability Science Program at the Center for International Development at Harvard. In the spare time, Lorenzo enjoys talking to friends in small quiet bars, traveling from small towns in Italy to more exotic places, and writing. 
Charlotte Cavaillé received her M.A in Political Science (with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies) from Sciences-po Paris in 2008. She spent a year at the University of Chicago as part of her undergrad program, an experience that opened up to her the world of American academia. In her undergraduate thesis, she studied Islam and public policy in the UK, focusing on the situation of publicly funded Islamic schools. Her research interests include religion and identity politics, the political economy of immigration and the politics of post-industrial societies with a focus on welfare state reform.
Anmol Chaddha earned a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002. He has worked at several policy institutes in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, doing research to support grassroots organizing and policy development around issues of racial and economic justice. In his policy career, he worked to establish living wage laws, increase local minimum wage levels, expand workers' access to health care, and improve the quality of jobs in low-wage industries. Anmol has also examined the impact of post-9/11 national security policies on immigrant communities, and he has conducted research on the structure of informal work in New York City. His academic interests include low-wage work, immigrant workers, and the politics of race and economic development in American cities. 
Jacqueline received her B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the University of California, Irvine in 2005. She is interested in the intersection of public policy, media content, and public opinion in the U.S. Her dissertation research focuses on how and when Americans become aware of the relatively low visibility aspects of problems in the safety net, come to identify as potentially affected by them, and come to form attitudes about what constitutes desirable government action on such issues. Her other academic interests include welfare state expansion and retrenchment, racial and ethnic inequality, and the politics of U.S. food and drug policy.
Victor studies poverty, development, globalization, and social movements. With Katherine S. Newman he co-authored 
Porsha graduated from Stanford University in 2005 where she majored in Political Science and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her senior thesis analyzed the psychological and political determinants of African American
perceptions of racial group threat from Latinos in Los Angeles and Compton. Since graduation, Porsha worked as a research assistant in the Metropolitan Policy and Economic Studies division of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. She has worked on several projects ranging from policy proposals on the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to issues focusing on antipoverty policies such as the Earned Income Tax Credit in urban
communities. She also worked with Dr. Alice Rivlin on her new upcoming book on the crisis of rising health care expenditures and the politics of Medicare. Currently, Porsha’s research interests focus on the ways in which the socio-economic and political contexts of neighborhoods create and/or prevent opportunities for conflict and coalition building among different racial and ethnic groups in multiethnic cities and suburban areas. Outside of school,
Porsha’s hobbies include dancing, shopping, and watching the food network.
David Deming is a fifth-year doctoral student in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, concentrating in applied microeconomics, econometrics, and program evaluation. His primary area of interest is education policy, particularly early childhood and K-12 education. He is currently working on a paper about the long-term benefits of participation in Head Start. He is also working on a paper about the causes and consequences of racial resegregation and school choice in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. His other research interests include the lengthening of childhood, the role of non-cognitive skill development in K-12 education and the effect of non-cognitive skills on college persistence. He holds a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in political science from The Ohio State University, and an M.P.P. from the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California-Berkeley. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, bicycling and watching his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes dominate the Big Ten. 
Born and raised in Toronto, Jeff received his Honours BA in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Toronto in 2004. His academic interests include race and ethnic relations, health inequalities, and social and organizational change. Jeff’s past research focused on the restructuring of Ontario’s health care system and the transformation and closure of the Wellesley Hospital in downtown Toronto. He is co-author of Survival Strategies: The Life, Death, and Renaissance of a Canadian Teaching Hospital (Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2006). His qualifying paper used longitudinal data to investigate the conditions shaping the relative (in)efficacy of diversity training programs in 810 US organizations. His dissertation research, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, the Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP), the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (Canada Program), and the Indigenous Health Research Development Program (McMaster University/Univeristy of Toronto), is an ethnographic study of Anishinaabe-non-Anishinaabe relations in Northwestern Ontario, with a focus on identity processes, inter-group boundaries and bridges, racism and anti-racism. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys playing tennis, listening to music, and traveling.
Nicole Deterding grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and attended Wellesley College, where she earned a B.A. in Sociology in 2003. After graduation, she moved to Washington, DC, where she worked for four years as a Research Assistant and Associate at The Urban Institute and completed a Master's degree in Education Policy Studies at The George Washington University. During her time at Urban, Nicole worked on several multi-site, mixed methods program evaluations of education interventions, in both K-12 and higher education settings. Topics she has studied include underrepresented minorities in math, science and engineering; institutional change processes in higher education; and the educational segregation of limited English proficient students. Her current research interests lie in stratification, social mobility, and policies that aim to mediate educational inequality. Outside of academics, Nicole enjoys exploring the city, reading novels, and cooking an occasional elaborate meal.
Will Dobbie is a third-year doctoral student in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, concentrating in applied microeconomics, econometrics, and program evaluation. His primary area of interest is education policy, particularly early childhood and K-12 education. He is currently working on a paper about the benefits of a longer school year. He is also working on papers concerning the consequences of low-birth weight, and the characteristics of successful urban schools. He holds a B.A. in economics from Kalamazoo College, and a M.A. in economics from the University of Washington in Seattle. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, running, and finding excuses to be outside.
Ethan Fosse received his B.A. in Sociology from the University of Kansas in 2004, with Honors and Distinction. Prior to coming to Harvard, he worked at Kansas Legal Services, Inc. to create and implement a legal needs survey of nearly seven hundred low-income and disadvantaged Kansans. From these results he co-wrote a policy paper and in 2004 received the Undergraduate Research Award from the University of Kansas. In addition, in 2003 he worked as an urban ethnographer at the University of California, Los Angeles for a multi-year project on public spaces funded by the National Science Foundation. 
Nathan Fosse is a graduate student in sociology and he received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Kansas State University. Currently, he is working on the areas of health and poverty. His past projects have included the following: 1) a qualitative study of the meaning of sexual infidelity among low-income men, 2) a qualitative study of low-income men's prospective attitudes toward fatherhood, 3) a longitudinal secondary analysis of adolescent health and educational outcomes, 4) a longitudinal secondary analysis of cultural capital and elite college attainment. Future and current projects include: 1) the causal effect of involvement in music classes on cognitive ability, 2) a comparison of health inequalities in Sweden and the UK, 3) the relationship between mortality and income in the United States. Nathan also has taught courses in social theory, sociology of culture, and medical sociology. In addition to teaching, he has served as a thesis advisor to undergraduate students in social studies.
Bernard L. Fraga received his B.A. in Political Science and Linguistics from Stanford University in 2008. Broadly, Bernard's research examines American political behavior, electoral politics, party identification, and the incorporation of minority groups and immigrants into the political system through both policy and the actions of political parties. Prior to graduate school, Bernard conducted research on education policy for English learners, focusing on how California policy changed in response to shifts in the political climate from the 1960s to the present. Since coming to Harvard, he has explored the effect of inclement weather on voter turnout and the impact of the Voting Rights Act's language provisions on turnout for language minority groups.
Amanda is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government and Graduate Student Affiliate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005 with a B.A. in Political Science and before beginning her doctoral studies, Amanda worked briefly for the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and as an International Fellow at the German Parliament in Berlin. At Harvard, she is interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary analysis of the international political and economic dynamics that affect immigrant integration, primarily with respect to flows from the Middle East/North Africa to the United States and Western Europe. More specifically, she has worked on a number of projects looking at the presence of Islam in Western Europe, the influence of remittances on integration, and immigrant inequality vis-à-vis comparative welfare states and labour market regimes. Her most current research engages the question of transnational networks and the radicalization of Islam in the West. When not working, Amanda enjoys traveling (of late in North Africa), drinking strong coffee, and watching bad reality television. 
Ben Goodrich graduated from Emory University in 2001 with a master's degree in political science and a bachelor's degree in political science and economics (just for fun, he finished the requirements for a philosophy major as well). Since college, he has worked at the Institute for International Economics, which is a well-respected "think tank" in Washington D.C. that researches international economic policy. While in Washington, Ben made a name for himself by analyzing the steel industry in the United States and also researched the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In graduate school, Ben plans to study the ways in which developed countries adjust to globalization and in particular, how governments meet the needs of workers whose job security is threatened by globalization. In addition, he is interested in multilateral economic institutions and quantitative methodology. Ben grew up in Dallas
and spends too much of his spare time following Dallas' professional sports teams. He will always be a fan of '80s rock music. For more information about Ben, see his webpage: 
Elizabeth Greenwood is a 3rd year student in the department of economics. She graduated from MIT in 2005 with bachelors degrees in mathematics and economics. After graduation, she was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley, where she worked with Michael Greenstone on various projects including the economics of climate change and the effectiveness of the surge in Iraq. Her interests include labor economics, econometrics, experimental economics, and the economics of national security. She also does medical advocacy and counseling with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and was a domestic violence crisis counselor at Woman, Inc in San Francisco. In her spare time, she enjoys running, traveling, and trying new restaurants.
Mike Henderson graduated in 2001 from Louisiana State University, where he earned undergraduate degrees in both political science and agriculture. He later joined Teach for America and served for two years as a middle school math and science teacher for students with learning disabilities in a low income urban neighborhood of Baton Rouge, his hometown. During this time he had the privilege of teaching the most amazing group of children in the world. Before arriving at Harvard, he worked with a public interest non-profit in Louisiana conducting research on education quality and equity. His current research interests include the impacts of social welfare policies on creation of issue publics and the impacts of changes in income inequality on disparities in political engagement. Mike also continues to do research on education policy, particularly on school accountability and teacher quality. Though he may be sixteen hundred miles from home, Mike continues to cheer on his beloved Fightin' Tigers of LSU (current reigning national champions) as loudly and obnoxiously as ever. He spends the rest of his spare time daydreaming about home-cooked south Louisiana gumbo.
John Horton is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Public Policy PhD program at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research focuses on labor economics, organizational economics and decision-making. He is particularly interested in understanding the implications of online labor markets. In these markets, people from around the world can perform tasks amenable to remote completion, such as computer programming, design, customer service support and clerical work. For a growing share of work, the geographic and national constraints of traditional labor markets are disappearing, allowing a kind of virtual "immigration." These markets could have poverty-alleviating properties but may also exacerbate inequality. They also make the traditional employer-employee relationship more transitory, which also has social policy implications. John is a graduate associate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He and his wife Robin are resident tutors at Pforzheimer House, Harvard College.
David Hureau is a first-year student in the program in Sociology and Social Policy and a Research Fellow for the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School. David received his BA from Wesleyan University in 2001 with a major in African American Studies and History, and his MPP from the Kennedy School of Government in 2006, with a concentration in Criminal Justice Policy. His research interests include youth violence, gangs, urban neighborhoods, youth development, social networks and micro-sociology. Prior to joining the Program in Sociology and Social Policy, David served for three years as the Program Director of the New Outlook Teen Center in Exeter, NH and for two years as a Researcher in the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at the Harvard Kennedy School. During his time at the Kennedy School, David worked very closely with Anthony Braga researching the dynamics of violent crime in Boston, and was centrally involved in many gang violence interventions in the city. A resident of Dorchester, David feels a strong connection to Boston's neighborhoods and people and is committed to the rigorous and responsible study of Boston. 
Victoria Levin is currently in her fourth year of a Ph.D. in Public Policy. She received her B.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University in 2000. She also received a Master's degree in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Kennedy School of Government in 2003. Before coming back to the Kennedy School for a Ph.D., Victoria worked at the World Bank on issues of foreign aid, poverty, and international inequality. Her primary research interests include topics in public economics and labor economics in developing countries. Currently, she is investigating the tradeoffs between cash transfers and in-kind benefits, using as a case study the recent benefit monetization reform in Russia. In her spare time, Victoria enjoys seeing the world, reading fiction, and attending live music events. 
Jeremy received his B.A. in History and Sociology from the University of Michigan in 2008.
Katherine received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale University in June 2007. Her senior thesis compared the political culture and institutional factors shaping the ability of business leaders to exert power in economic development decisions in Milwaukee and Minneapolis, and examined what types of policies emerged in both cities as a consequence of these power relations. Outside her academic coursework, Katherine worked as a research assistant for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development examining city-suburb polarization, regional job growth, and neighborhood poverty. In addition, she conducted research for the New Haven Housing Authority exploring how changes in Section 8 income limits would affect voucher recipients. Her research interests broadly include urban politics and policy, immigration, political behavior, and public opinion. She is currently exploring how neighborhood and metropolitan racial and socioeconomic contexts affect public support for local policies and the creation of political coalitions.
David is originally from Madison, Wisconsin. He received an AB in Economics and History and AM in Statistics from Harvard College in 2005. Currently, he is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at Harvard. His research interests include development, international trade and finance, and political economy, and he also teaches a course on the history of economic thought. 
Josh Mitchell received his B.A./B.S. in economics and
mathematics from Stanford University in 2005. He
spent a summer at the Congressional Budget Office
working to develop a forecast of the growth in
personal medical expenditures before beginning his
Christopher Muller is a PhD student in Sociology. He received a BA in Public Policy and American Institutions and Ethnic Studies from Brown University in 2003. Prior to entering Harvard, he worked for three years as a policy research associate at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Chris's research interests lie in incarceration, historical and political sociology, philosophy of science, and classification.
Ann Owens received her BA in Sociology from the University of Chicago in 2004. Prior to graduate school, Ann worked at the Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work where her research focused on working families and the work-family balance. Her academic interests center around inequality in education, the family and neighborhoods. Her qualifying paper examined how school and neighborhood contexts jointly influence adolescents' achievement. Currently, Ann is conducting a qualitative exploration of neighborhood effects on education; examining how neighborhood poverty affects parenting, and identifying how gentrification in neighborhoods in Chicago affects displaced residents and citywide inequality. When not in front of a computer, Ann enjoys high-brow reality television shows, Burdick's chocolate, reading novels, the Chicago Cubs, and visiting the Make Way for Ducklings statue in the Boston Public Garden.
Sabrina Pendergrass received an A.B. in Sociology with High Honors and a Certificate in African-American Studies from Princeton University in June 2002. Her research interests are cultural sociology, race and ethnicity, inequality, and internal migration. Sabrina's doctoral dissertation is a class and gender comparative analysis of how culture matters for an understudied demographic shift---the reversal of the African American Great Migration. Based on in-depth interviews with more than 120 African American interregional migrants to Charlotte, NC, the dissertation develops theory about how meaning-making matters with individual-level social network and economic processes of internal migration. The study explains how the meanings of migrating south differ for the black middle-class compared to the working-class and for black male compared to female migrants. The dissertation also links three sociological subfields—cultural sociology, internal migration, and race/class/gender stratification-- into an original theoretical dialogue. Finally, the project provides one of the first extensive qualitative studies of the reverse migration and is the first to focus on African American migrants to the South who are working-age, moving to urban areas, and were born and raised in the Northeast, Midwest, and West.
Melanie Rose Penny hails from Compton, CA, and has arrived at Harvard
after spending five years on the Stanford University farm. She received
her bachelor's degree in Political Science in 2002, and spent the
following year working as a research assistant in Stanford's Departments
of Communication and Psychology, studying a range of race-related
issues. Her senior thesis dealt with the effect of the news media on the
creation of criminal justice policy and the resultant disproportionate
confinement of African-American youth. While she has taken a hiatus from
studying media effects, she plans to return to this research agenda in
the near future. Melanie's many research interests revolve around the
issue of perception and the way in which popular perceptions can
significantly influence the content of social acts. Currently, she is
studying how perceptions of one's neighborhood may affect the quality of
life experienced within various neighborhood contexts. Although she is
most frequently consumed by the weight of pressing social issues, in her
lighter moments, Ms. Penny enjoys partaking of the comedic stylings and
social commentary of Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy (the early years).
Sanjay is a PhD Candidate in Sociology and Social Policy. His research interests include labor market inequality, the political economy of development, and racial and gender discrimination. He is currently conducting research on flexible/non-standard employment in Europe, with a focus on its implications for low-wage workers. Sanjay's past work experience includes time spent as a magazine reporter, a union researcher, and a political canvasser. He received a BA in Sociology from Amherst College, and a Master's in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. Sanjay enjoys running, yoga, dancing, spicy food, and engaging in collective action for good causes. 
Brenna Marea Powell received her A.B. in Comparative Studies in Race
and Ethnicity, with a minor in Political Science, from Stanford in
1999. Her undergraduate work focused on race and public policy in the
US, and after graduation she worked with the Stanford Center on
Conflict and Negotiation with grassroots peacebuilding projects in
Northern Ireland. She is interested in comparative racial politics,
Matt Resseger is a 3rd year student in the Economics PhD program at Harvard. A
native of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Matt received his B.A. in Economics and Math
from Williams College in 2005. Following college, he spent two years working as
a Research Assistant at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, focusing on
retirement policy. Matt studies public, labor and urban economics, and his
current research interests include the effects of residential mobility on
inequality and incorporating behavioral foundations into the analysis of optimal
tax and social insurance programs. When not working on his research, Matt enjoys
running, tennis, classical music, and holding out hope for Cleveland's ill-fated
sports teams.
Viridiana Rios studies the impact of organized crime in poverty and inequality in Mexico. In particular, her research is quantitatively-oriented and addresses issues on judicial institutions, drug traffic and development. She studied her BA in Political Science at ITAM, in Mexico City, where she graduated with honors. Professionally, she has in-the-field experience at several development-related agencies such as the Mexican Ministry of Social Development, the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the United Nations. On her free time, when she is not reading newspapers (or 
Brendan Saloner is a third-year student in the Health Policy doctoral program with a concentration in ethics. His current research interests focus on the relationship between welfare and health policy, mental health care, health disparities, and ethical issues in resource allocation. He is examining the impact of welfare reform and insurance expansions in the 1990s on the insurance coverage of children. Brendan was a summer associate at the RAND Corporation in 2008 and 2009. His most recent project focused on public mental health and substance abuse services in the District of Columbia. Prior to his graduate studies, Brendan was a research assistant at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC where he worked on labor and human services policy. Brendan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with undergraduate degrees in Political Economy of Industrial Societies (high honors) and Philosophy.
Daniel Schlozman is a G-7 in Government and Social Policy. His dissertation asks about the causes and effects of socially important interest groups’ decisions to ally with American political parties. Although it also includes a comparative study of nineteen movements from Free Soil to gay rights, it principally considers two cases: organized labor’s long partnership with the Democratic Party; and evangelical conservatives’ alliance with the Republican Party since the 1970s. He received an AB magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard College. In 2008-09, he is a graduate fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Tracey Shollenberger earned her bachelor's degree in Administration of Justice and Spanish from the Pennsylvania State University in 2002. After graduation, she taught high school Spanish and mathematics in the Baltimore City Public Schools for three years, originally through the Teach For America program. In 2005, she transitioned from teaching to research, joining the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute. As a research associate at Urban, she investigated a range of topics including prisoner reentry, practitioner views of juvenile justice policy, and the impact of incarceration on children and families. She served as project manager for a National Institute of Justice-funded project aimed at reducing violence in three urban jail systems and for Returning Home-Texas, a longitudinal study of men and women released from Texas prisons and state jails. At Harvard, Tracey plans to focus her work on inequality in education and the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
Dan Schrage studies labor market discrimination, the spatial distribution of labor markets, and statistical methods aimed at improving research in these and other policy-related areas. He received his A.B. in computer science from Harvard in 2001, where he focused on computational economics. Before coming to graduate school, he spent four years doing research in artificial intelligence at a think tank in Cambridge. He is currently working on a project exploring the effects of a variety of hiring and recruitment practices on diversity in the managerial workforce. He is also examining the spatial mismatch hypothesis in urban labor markets. Dan grew up in the rural town of Salem, Illinois, then spent his adolescence trying to get his head around city life in downtown Phoenix. He was socialized at an early age into a lifelong passion for the St. Louis Cardinals, and in his spare time he enjoys spinning, producing, and dancing to the blips and bleeps of electronic music. 
Daniel Shoag is in his fourth year of Harvard's PhD program in economics. He
graduated from Harvard college in 2006, with a concentration in economics with
a citation in Hebrew. His primary research interests include dynamic public
finance and monetary policy. Daniel has worked in economic consulting, for the
Bureau of Labor Statistics and for Harvard Business School. He and his wife
Lyndsay are originally from Cleveland, Ohio.
Graziella Silva received her B.A. in social sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, 1998). She got her Masters degree in Anthropology and Sociology at the same university, graduating in 2000. Her Masters thesis, on the relationship between social sciences and public policies, was published as a book in Brazil in 2003. Between 2000 and 2003 Graziella taught at the State University in Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and conducted research on urban poverty, focusing on police abuse towards favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. In 2003 Graziella joined the Sociology PhD program at Harvard University. She wrote her qualification paper comparing race-based affirmative action in Brazil and South Africa, and is currently working on her dissertation project, which compares national, racial and class identities of black professionals in these two countries. In 2007, Graziella has also spent time in Lisbon, Portugal starting a research project on the meanings of race and of Luso-tropicalism within the Portuguese-speaking world.
Benjamin Sosnaud received his B.A. in Sociology and Political Science from Duke University in 2008. His primary research interests include wage and income inequality, working poverty, political inequalities, and political sociology. His past research projects include an analysis of linkages between class inequalities and voting behavior and an examination of the relationship between class perceptions and vote choice.
Jennifer Sykes earned a BA with highest honors from James Madison College at Michigan State University in Social Relations and Psychology and an MA with distinction from the University of York (UK) in Social Policy while studying on the Marshall Fellowship. She is currently a seventh year doctoral candidate studying in the Social Policy and Sociology program. Her research interests include child and family welfare, child protection and qualitative methods. Jennifer’s interest in child and family welfare has led her to undertake work relating to parenting under pressure, and her qualifying paper examined how neglecting mothers experience the child protection system. More recently, her dissertation research examines low-income working parents’ expenditures on children. Prior to studying at Harvard, Jennifer worked in the non-profit sector evaluating Michigan juvenile delinquency prevention initiatives and crime victims’ services.
Laura received her B.A. with Honors in Sociology from the Pennsylvania State University, with minors in Statistics and African American Studies. She is currently a sixth-year doctoral candidate in Sociology and Social Policy.
A summa cum laude graduate of Hunter College of CUNY, Van is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Policy. Van’s research broadly focuses on the socioeconomic, civic and political incorporation of post-1965 immigrants and their children, as well as its implications for the future of ethnic and racial inequality in the U.S. in the century ahead. His eclectic academic interests in immigration, race and ethnic relations, class and culture, civic and political participation, social inequality and public policy originate both from his personal experience as a political refugee and his scholarly attempt to understand the major demographic, political and social transformations of the American society as a result of post-1965 immigration. Specifically, his previous and current research has explored the incorporation of the Hispanic/Latino population, local and national influences on attitudes towards immigrants, cultural and structural causes and consequences of inequality in New York and San Diego, as well as how increasing ethnic/racial diversity might affect neighborhood local processes in Boston. 
Ugo is a second-year Ph.D. student in Economics. He grew up in Taranto (Southern Italy) and received a B.A. and a M.Sc. in Economics from Bocconi University in 2006 and 2008, respectively. In 2005 he spent a semester in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests focus on political economics, macroeconomics, and labor economics. Previous research also focused on the impact of values and beliefs on political and economic accountability. In the spare time, Ugo enjoys watching movies, traveling, cooking, reading, and following Italian soccer.
Tom is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the economics department, with interests in the economics of development, health, and racial disadvantage. His past research, published in journals such as 
Jessica Welburn is a sixth year graduate student in the Department of Sociology.
Before coming to Harvard she earned her B.A. (honors, Phi Beta Kappa) in
sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Elizabeth McCarthy Wikler is a second-year student in Harvard's Ph.D. program in Health Policy. Beth graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 2005 with an AB in Social Studies and a certificate in Health Policy. As an undergraduate, she received a fellowship from Harvard's Center for American Political Studies for her senior thesis on personal responsibility and U.S. obesity policy. After graduating, while serving as a Fellow at the Congressional Hunger Center, she conducted research on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in New York City and examined health policy at Families USA, a DC-based consumer health advocacy and research organization. From 2006 to 2008, while serving as a Health Policy Analyst at Families USA, Beth contributed to publications on the uninsured, medical debt, and state health policy reforms. Her current research interests include national health reform, public opinion, and aging and long-term care. Beth also serves as a resident tutor in Cabot House. When not immersed in schoolwork, she loves to cook huge meals, run, and travel. Beth is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas
K. Miya Woolfalk is a fourth-year doctoral student in Government and Social Policy. She received her B.A. in History from Stanford University in 2005. Prior to entering graduate school, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and taught high school level history and civics courses at California Education Plan, School for Independent Learners. Her primary field of research is American politics and her research interests include political behavior and public opinion, racial and ethnic politics and social policy and inequality. Her work has considered the influence of racial identification and racial group consciousness on mixed-race social policy preferences, the impacts of economic, racial and ethnic contexts on U.S. state-level social spending, and the effects of economic and racial inequalities in political participation on representational biases in social policy opinions.
Crystal Yang is a second-year student in the economics department. Originally from Colorado, Crystal graduated from Harvard College in 2008 with a BA in Economics and MA in Statistics. As an undergraduate, she studied issues regarding women's participation in the labor market and higher education. She also became interested in law and economics, writing her undergraduate thesis on the impact of rape shield legislation on the reporting of rape and subsequent arrest and conviction rates of offenders. Her current research interests include labor economics and public economics, particularly wage inequality and education policy, topics which she explores in graduate school and as a volunteer for the Center for Law and Education. Crystal is also interested in further studying the intersection between law and economics, and plans to pursue a joint JD/PhD. In her free time, she enjoys movies, food, and sleeping.
Clara is a second year student in the Public Policy PhD program. She graduated
with a BA(Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University in
2004. After spending two years in investment banking, focusing on the health
care industry, Clara returned to university to earn a Masters in Public
Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School in
2008. As a PhD student, she studies Public Economics and Political Economy. Her
current research focuses on the political economy of social security reform in
Europe, as well as determinants of political organization of the elderly. Clara
is a Presidential Fellow at Harvard University. In her free time, she enjoys playing the flute and piano, alpine skiing, and volunteering for the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston. 
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