Erick Sager is a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. His research focuses on the effects of firm competition, inflation, international trade, and inequality on the macroeconomy. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Board, he was a research economist in the Division of Price and Index Number Research at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a visiting assistant professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, and a research analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Sager received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Expert Type: Grantee
Luca Maini
Luca Maini is an assistant professor of economics in the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a research fellow at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. His research focuses on competition in pharmaceutical markets, with an emphasis on the interaction between government regulation and firm strategy. Maini received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and his B.A. in economics and B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago.
Thomas Hwang
Thomas Hwang is the founder of the Cancer Innovation and Regulation Initiative at the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a resident physician in urological surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the regulation, reimbursement, and clinical development of new medicines and health technologies. His work has contributed to important policy and regulatory reforms in the United States and Europe, and. has been published in Science, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and Lancet Oncology. He received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his A.B. from Harvard College.
Tarikua Erda
Tarikua Erda is a Ph.D. candidate in sustainable development at Columbia University. Her research leverages her interdisciplinary Ph.D. training in economics and in environmental sciences to understand how various phenomena—from natural disasters to implicit bias—shape business dynamics, human capital, and ultimately the pace and inclusivity of economic growth. Her main dissertation project investigates the impact of disasters on businesses, entrepreneurs, and workers, and the role of federal assistance in post-disaster recovery. Erda holds a B.A. degree in economics from Princeton University.
Fern Ramoutar
Fern Ramoutar is a Ph.D. candidate studying economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on economic and racial inequality, food insecurity, urban economics, and political economy. Ramoutar holds a B.A. in economics and international relations from the University of Toronto and an M.A. in economics from the University of British Columbia.
Emily Ellis
Emily Ellis is a Ph.D. candidate in social work at the University of Chicago. Her research examines how social insurance and means-tested programs affect families with caregiving needs. Her dissertation is a mixed-methods study that explores how family structure and public benefits affect caregiving arrangements for older adults. Ellis has a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from American University, and an A.M. in social service administration from the University of Chicago.
Marina Gorzig
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.
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.