John Newman is the Herff Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis School of Law, where he researches and writes about a wide range of anti-monopoly issues, with a particular focus on digital zero-price markets. He currently serves as a member of the advisory boards of the American Antitrust Institute, the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, and the Academic Society for Competition Law. Newman has had the honor of serving in both federal antitrust enforcement agencies, first as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and, more recently, as deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Competition. In that role, he led the Bureau-wide project to identify and draft guidance on enforcement priorities under FTC Chair Lina Khan, helped to oversee the agency’s monopolization case against Meta Inc., and played a central role in building the agency’s ongoing monopolization case against Amazon.com Inc. Newman received his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law and his B.A. in Political Science from Iowa State University.
Expert Type: Grantee
Adam Seth Litwin
Adam Seth Litwin is an associate professor at Cornell University’s ’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where he also directs the Ph.D. program. He recently served as the J. William Fulbright Visiting Professor of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia. Litwin’s research, anchored in industrial relations, examines the determinants and impact of labor relations structures and technological change. He also writes on issues involving technological change, work, and workers in the health care sector. Litwin has published a mix of empirical and conceptual studies at the intersection of labor relations and technological change, in both industrial relations and medical journals, including: the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Human Resource Management, Applied Clinical Informatics, and the International Review of Psychiatry. Before earning his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Litwin conducted research on industrial relations institutions in Great Britain as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellow at the London School of Economics. He also was a research assistant at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington.
Brian Justie
Brian Justie is a senior research analyst at the UCLA Labor Center. His doctoral research, which examines the impact of new technologies on work and workers, has been published in academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, Internet Histories, and Logic. As a graduate student, he co-authored several reports with the Labor Center, including studies of working conditions and wages in the gig economy and fast-food sector. As a staff researcher, he has led projects investigating the impacts of automation at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, as well as the role of temporary staffing agencies in Southern California’s meatpacking industry. Justie completed his Ph.D. at UCLA in the Department of Information Studies.
Adam Blandin
Adam Blandin is an assistant professor of economics at Vanderbilt University. He is a macroeconomist with research interests in labor markets and public policy. His current research focuses on understanding the determinants of labor supply, the relationship between family structure and inequality, and the evolving nature of work. He co-developed and runs the Real-Time Population Survey, a quarterly nationally representative survey of U.S. households designed to deliver novel insights on the state of the labor market. Blandin’s research has been published in top economics journals, including the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. His work has also been featured in media outlets such as Bloomberg, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, he was an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was a regular visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Blandin earned his Ph.D. in economics from Arizona State University.
Alexander Bick
Alexander Bick is a senior economic policy advisor in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is a macroeconomist with research interests in labor markets and economic growth. His current work focuses on two areas: within- and cross-country differences in hours worked and the role of public policy, and recent labor market trends, including remote work and the adoption of generative AI. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-led a high-frequency online labor market survey with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to provide real-time estimates of the state of the labor market. Bick’s research has been published in top economics journals, including American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, and Quarterly Journal of Economics. His work has also been featured in media outlets such as Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Prior to joining the St. Louis Fed, he held academic positions at Goethe University and Arizona State University and spent a sabbatical in 2019 as a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Bick earned his Ph.D. in economics from Goethe University Frankfurt.
Ariel Avgar
Ariel C. Avgar is a David M. Cohen Professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and director of the Center for Applied Research on Work. His research focuses on two primary areas within employment relations. First, he explores the role that employment relations factors play in the health care industry, examining the effects of a variety of workplace innovations, including new technology, delivery of care models, and innovative work practices, on patients, front-line employees, and organizational performance. Second, he studies conflict and its management in organizations, with a focus on the strategic choices made by firms, investigating the adoption and implementation of organizational-level conflict management practices and systems to better understand the consequences of conflict for employees and employers. Avgar’s research has been published in a number of journals, including: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, International Journal of Conflict Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Negotiation and Conflict Management Review, Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Health Services Research, and Medical Care. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Omer Ali
Omer Ali is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh. His work centers on topics in economic history, political economy, and urban economics, with a focus on racial inequality. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, he was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Duke University.
Andrew Baker
Andrew Baker is an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley Law School. His areas of interest include corporate governance, securities regulation, and the role of economic evidence in the adjudication of legal disputes. His current research explores the intersection of corporate governance and labor market outcomes. Prior work has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Economic Literature, and the Stanford Law Review. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration and J.D. from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University.
Jacob Bastian
Jacob Bastian is an assistant professor of economics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His research explores how public policy can reduce poverty, expand economic opportunity, and shape social attitudes, while also identifying potential unintended consequences. Much of his work focuses on how tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, affect the well-being of lower-income U.S. families. Bastian’s research has been published in leading academic journals, including AEJ: Policy, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Journal of Labor Economics. His work has also been featured in major media outlets, such as The New York Times and The Economist. Prior to joining Rutgers, he completed a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. From 2023 to 2024, Bastian served as a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he focused on child poverty, child care, and increasing the supply of affordable housing.
Anna Croley
Anna Croley is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Yale University. Her research centers on industrial organization and public economics, with a focus on housing markets. In 2024, she served as a staff economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where she worked on topics related to housing, tax, and competition policy. She holds a B.S. in applied mathematics and economics from Brown University.