Marina Mileo Gorzig is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on social inequalities, particularly discrimination in the labor market and health disparities. Gorzig is a researcher at Mathematica and a member of the 2022–2023 cohort at the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. Previously, Gorzig was an assistant professor at St. Catherine University, where she engaged in numerous collaborative research projects with students focusing on discrimination in policing, housing, and the labor market, and taught a wide range of courses in economics and public policy. She received her Ph.D. in public policy from Duke University, her M.S. in economics from Tufts University, and her B.A. in economics from Earlham College.
Expert Type: Grantee
Natasha Pilkauskas
Natasha Pilkauskas is an associate professor of public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Her research considers how demographic, social safety net, and economic shifts in the United States affect low-income families with children. Specifically, her work examines children’s shared living arrangements, economic insecurity among vulnerable populations, and the effects of cash transfers, such as tax credits, on the health and well-being of families with low incomes. Pilkauskas received her Ph.D. in social welfare policy from Columbia University, a master’s in public policy from Harvard University, and a B.A. in economics and sociology from Northwestern University.
Katherine Michelmore
Katherine Michelmore is an associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Michelmore is a leading scholar and educator on the social safety net, education policy, labor economics, and economic demography. A research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, she is a recognized expert on the efficacy of the Earned Income Tax Credit and its impact on children. Previously, she was assistant professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. Michelmore completed her Ph.D. in policy analysis and management at Cornell University. She holds a B.A. in economics and psychology from Wesleyan University.
Ethan Feilich
Ethan Feilich is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of California, Davis. His research explores the macroeconomic aspects of inequality. His current projects include studying how monetary policy shapes the household wealth distribution and how households at different points on the income distribution suffer differentially in recessions. Feilich received his B.S. from Binghamton University.
Pilar Gonalons-Pons
Pilar Gonalons-Pons is the Alber-Klingelhofer Presidential assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines how work, families, and social policies structure economic inequalities, with a particular focus on how inequalities change over time and over the life course. Gonalons-Pons received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Barcelona.
Giovanni Righi
Giovanni Righi is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research explores the causes and consequences of racial disparities in U.S. workplaces. His current projects investigate the impact of workplace racial inclusion on income and labor market opportunities. Righi previously worked as a research fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and received a joint A.B./M.A. in economics from the University of Georgia.
Eliza Forsythe
Eliza Forsythe is an assistant professor in the Labor and Employment Relations School and the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In addition to studying recessions, her research spans several areas of labor economics, including the impacts of technological change and public policy on workers and employers. She has received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, the Upjohn Institute, and the U.S. Department of Labor, and has presented her research on inequality and the impacts of recessions on disadvantaged workers to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Before joining the University of Illinois, Forsythe was a postdoctoral scholar at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her B.A. in economics and mathematics from Mills College.
Ludwig Straub
Ludwig Straub is an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University’s Department of Economics. He has worked on the relationship between rising economic inequality and macroeconomic trends, as well as the propagation of fiscal and monetary policy in settings with inequality among households. He has recently studied the sectoral propagation of shocks in the recent COVID-19 crisis. Straub received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018 and holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics and physics.
Brennan Williams
Brennan Williams is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Virginia’s Department of Economics and an affiliate of the Environmental Inequality Lab. His research seeks to understand the economic consequences of environmental change. His work has explored the long-term effects of exposure to natural disasters during early childhood and the distributional consequences of environmental risk.
Luca Perdoni
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.