Faculty Highlights

Alison Jacknowitz is SPA Interim Senior Associate Dean. Her research addresses issues related to poverty, food insecurity, food assistance, children, and families. Her work has appeared in a variety of scholarly journals, including: Contemporary Economic Policy, Demography, Journal of Nutrition, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Pediatrics, Maternal and Child Health, Social Service Review, and the Journal of Human Resources. She is on the Technical Advisory Board of Feeding America.

SPA Associate Professor Bradley Hardy studies poverty, inequality, economic risk, and intergenerational economic mobility in the U.S., with a focus on socio-economically disadvantaged families. He also examines the role and effectiveness of social welfare policies, such as food stamps (SNAP) and Earned Income Tax Credit in lowering poverty and buffering against negative economic shocks. He is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, as well as a research fellow with the D.C. Government Office of Revenue Analysis. Hardy served as the 2016 Okun-Model Fellow with the Brookings Institution, where he is now currently a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies. He serves on the Social Policy at American University School editorial board of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. of Public A airs AU School of Public Affairs is home to world class experts who study how governmental and non-governmental entities address the challenges of poverty, hunger, health outcomes, educational disparities, unemployment, and discrimination.

Select Research Faculty Highlights

Children at Risk for Food Insecurity SPA Professor Laura Langbein’s research fields include: theories of bureaucratic discretion, A study led by SPA Assistant Professor Taryn Morrissey productivity, principal-agent models, social capital, and cooperation in the workplace. She shows that children at risk for food insecurity can be also works on theories of influence of interest groups in Congress and the bureaucracy, and found in communities across the income spectrum. The empirical applications in various policy areas, including the environment, education, defense, housing, criminal justice (death penalty and police), and corruption. Her articles have appeared in research, “Neighborhood Poverty and Children’s Food numerous journals on politics, economics, policy analysis, and public administration. “Insecurity,” reports that 22 percent of kindergarteners in high-poverty communities lived in food-insecure households, compared to 9 percent of those in low-poverty communities — a lower rate, but still high. The study appears in Children and Youth Services Review. SPA Associate Professor Derek Hyra is founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at AU. His research focuses on processes of neighborhood change, with an emphasis on housing, urban politics, and race. He is co-editor of Capital Dilemma: Growth and Inequality in Washington, DC and author of The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville (University of High Priced Food and Childhood Obesity Chicago Press 2008) and Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City (University of Chicago Press A study by SPA Associate Professor Taryn Morrissey, 2017). Professor Hyra’s research has been published in academic journals including, Housing Policy Associate Professor Alison Jacknowitz, and then Ph.D. Debate, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies. He has also received several important grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Rockefeller student Katie Vinopal, finds in 2013 that high prices for Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. fresh fruits and vegetables are associated with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) in young children in low and middle SPA Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow Adan Silverio Murillo focuses on development economics income households. The study, “The Influences of Local and applied econometrics. Murillo analyzes how non-cognitive skills affect family decisions and Food Prices on Children’s Obesity and Eating Habits,” the formation of adolescent capabilities. Murillo received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the focuses on households under 300 percent of the federal University of Minnesota, where he completed his Ph.D. in Applied Economics. At the University of poverty line. The findings are published in Pediatrics. Minnesota, Murrillo discovered his love for teaching and was a recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award. Prior to his Ph.D., he served in the Mexican government as Director of Quantitative Studies at the Minister of Social Development and coordinated evaluations of both random and non-random experiments for more than 10 social programs, including the well-known social program PROSPERA (formerly known as PROGRESA).

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Income Instability and Response of the Safety Net A 2016 study by SPA Associate Professor Bradley Hardy shows that safety net programs such as SNAP, EITC, Unemployment Insurance, and public housing provide an important buffer against income instability. Hardy finds that this instability is very often driven by job loss and larger macroeconomic shocks, and that income instability is highest among low-income and less-educated households in the last 30 years. For many low-income households, resources are not only limited but perhaps less predictable as well. The challenges with meeting these income swings are heightened for families lacking adequate savings or access to credit to weather these economic challenges. The study was published in Contemporary Economic Policy.

SPA Associate Professor SPA Professor Jeremy Shiffman SPA Associate Professor Taryn Bradley Hardy received a grant and Yusra Shawar SPA/PhD ‘16 Morrissey received a grant from the from the Washington Center for received a grant from the Open Institute for Research on Poverty at Equitable Growth to support his Society Foundation to support the University of Wisconsin-Madison. project, “e Historical Shadow their study of global health e title of her research is “E ects of of Segregation on Human metrics. State Safety Net and Labor Policies Capital and Upward Mobility.” on Family Economic Stability in the Aermath of the Great Recession.” American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW School of Public Affairs Washington, DC 20016-8022 Social Policy

Proud of our Faculty Achievements Select Books

Bradley Hardy received the National Economic Association President’s Award in recognition of his exemplary service towards the organization. The National Academy of Social Insurance also named Hardy as one of its distinguished social insurance experts and a member of its academy. Hardy was the Brookings Institute Okun- Model Fellow in 2016 and is now a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Economic Studies. SPA Associate Professor Taryn Morrissey served as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Labor, Human Services and Population at the Urban Institute, in SPA Associate Professor Derek Hyra’s book, Race, A book co-authored by SPA Associate Professor Spring 2017. Morrissey has also been named a Centers Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City Taryn Morrissey, Ajay Chaudry, Christina Weiland, for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Fellow. She (University of Chicago Press) examines Washington and Hirokazu Yoshikawa looks at the landscape of early will be serving as a health-related social services expert D.C.’s rapidly changing economic landscape through the care and education for children birth to kindergarten in assisting the Division of Population Health Incentives prism of the revitalization of the city’s historic Shaw/U the U.S. e book, Cradle to Kindergarten: A New and Infrastructure in the Prevention and Population Street neighborhood. As the nation’s capital, Washington Plan to Combat Inequality o ers a comprehensive, Health Group at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid serves as both an outlier and example to cities across the evidence-based strategy that diagnoses the obstacles Innovation (CMMI). country. While the economy is thriving, a closer look to accessible early education and charts a path to Professor Erdal Tekin is serving as Brookings Institution reveals stark class divisions. e release of his book in opportunity for all children. Visiting Fellow through the Fall of 2017. 2017 generated widespread media coverage and discussion that exposed the tension and complex drivers behind the process of gentrication in Washington.

Post-graduation Success

Global Health Policy

Healthcare Policy

Social Welfare Policy and Programs

Child and Family Policy

Graduate Education and the Social Policy American Policy System Urban Policy and Courses Community Development Race, Policy, and Administration % Housing Policy 96 Health Economics and Policy of graduates are employedor in graduate Development, Politics and Policy in DC school, or both, within six months of graduation