Luca Perdoni is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Yale University. His research interests lie at the intersection of labor and urban economics. He studies the effects of place-based policies and the social environment on educational outcomes, earning trajectories and wealth accumulation. Perdoni’s dissertation investigates the role of redlining and family structure as sources of socioeconomic gaps in the United States. He earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics at Collegio Carlo Alberto and the University of Turin.
Expert Type: Grantee
Daniele Caratelli
Daniele Caratelli is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Stanford University. His research interests are in macroeconomics, specifically monetary and labor macroeconomics. In ongoing research, he studies optimal monetary policy and labor market dynamics over the business cycle. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a research analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Caratelli holds bachelor’s degrees with honors in mathematics and economics from the University of Chicago.
Kritika Goel
Kritika Goel is a Ph.D. Candidate in economics at Boston College. Her research interests are in firm conduct and antitrust issues, specifically in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of price discrimination by medical device manufacturers on product entry, consumer welfare, and the take-up of better technologies. She received her B.A and M.A in economics from the University of Delhi.
Binyamin Kleinman Orleansky
Benny Kleinman Orleansky is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Princeton University. His research interests are macroeconomics, international trade, and economic geography. His dissertation investigates the spatial consequences of the recent increase in the scale of firms, focusing on its impact on regional disparities and segregation. His other research projects include the study of how changes in international economic exposure affect political relationships between countries, and the dynamics of regional spillovers of economic shocks. He earned his B.A. degrees in economics and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Haifa and a M.A. in economics at Tel Aviv University.
Brandon Alston
Brandon Alston is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University with graduate certificates in African American studies and teaching and learning. His research examines how surveillance systems operate across poor Black neighborhoods, prisons, and probation programs. Alston’s research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for Research on Poverty, and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars. He has been recognized as a National Academies of Sciences Ford predoctoral fellow and an American Bar Foundation doctoral fellow. In 2021, Alston was inducted into the Edward Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. He has received awards from national and regional professional associations, including the American Sociological Association, Midwest Sociological Society, and the Association of Black Sociologists. He previously earned a Master of Science in management from Wake Forest University Business School, where he was a corporate fellow. In addition, he received a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and religion (with distinction) from Haverford College, where he received the Mellon Mays Fellowship.
Ihsaan Bassier
Ihsaan Bassier is a postdoctoral research economist working with Alan Manning at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is interested in labor and political economy, with the goal of understanding the labor market as grounded in power, institutions, and developing country contexts. Bassier is also a researcher at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit at the University of Cape Town and has worked with the South African government on social grants relief policy in response to COVID-19. He holds a B.Sc. in mathematics and statistics from the University of Cape Town and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Julia Henly
Julia R. Henly is a professor in the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago, where she chairs the Ph.D. program and co-directs the Employment Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network. Henly’s scholarship aims to advance understanding of the economic and caregiving strategies of low-income families to inform the design and improve the effectiveness of work-family policies and public benefits, especially child care policy. Her ongoing projects investigate equity in program access and use of child care subsidy programs; the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on child care programs and the care arrangements of low-income families; parental child care decision-making in predominantly Latinx communities; and the prevalence and consequences of precarious work schedules on work-family outcomes. Henly is a 2018 Society for Social Work and Research fellow, a 2016 Interdisciplinary Research Leadership fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a 2016 distinguished fellow of the William T. Grant Foundation. Henly received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.S.W. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Her scholarship has received funding from federal agencies and private foundations, and is published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and edited book volumes.
David Alexander
David Alexander is director of research at Illinois Action for Children. His innovative team analyzes public policy and programming for child care, early education, and working parents in Illinois using both administrative data and qualitative data collected specially from parents and providers. His team frequently reports distributional impacts of policy and program changes across race, income, community, and region. He has taught economics and philosophy, managed research projects at the University of Chicago, and conducted program and policy research for national advocacy organizations. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Pennsylvania State University, and a B.A. in philosophy from Williams College.
Justin Wiltshire
Justin Wiltshire is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and an affiliate of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. His research explores the dynamic interplay of local labor market conditions, industrial composition, housing prices, migration, and government intervention. Wiltshire received his B.A. and M.A. in economics from Simon Fraser University, and his M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Davis.
Basil Halperin
Basil Halperin is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on optimal monetary policy: how central banks should behave in order to avoid recessions, unnecessary unemployment, and excess inflation, among other areas. Prior to graduate school, he was an economist at Uber Technologies Inc. and a researcher at AQR Capital Management. Halperin completed his undergraduate studies in economics, mathematics, and Chinese at the University of Chicago.