Sheridan Fuller was a Dissertation Scholar at Equitable Growth from 2021 – 2023.

Sheridan Fuller is a Ph.D. candidate in human development and social policy at Northwestern University. His research addresses U.S. social infrastructure’s potential to promote families’ well-being while acknowledging its pitfalls. He studies children’s and families’ interactions with income support programs, focusing on the effect of these programs on children’s long-term outcomes. Fuller’s research is motivated by two related questions. First, how do we better design U.S. social infrastructure to support children’s health and well-being? Second, do welfare policies that prevent families from accessing critical resources impact children’s developmental trajectory? His research addresses these questions by combining his professional policy experience working on income support programs with multidisciplinary training grounded in econometric methods and drawing on insights from political science and human development. His dissertation seeks to address these questions through historical and contemporary analysis of the public cash welfare system. Before beginning his doctoral work at Northwestern, Fuller worked on income support programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a policy analyst and presidential management fellow and earned his Master of Public Policy and B.A. from the University of Virginia.