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Department of Public Administration and Policy (DPAP) faculty member’s research illuminates pressing social problems, inequities, and potential policy solutions to the most pressing issues of our day, including social inequality, food insecurity, and the achievement and opportunity gap.

We study a range of social policies and programs and their effects on the health, economic, and educational outcomes of individuals and families, and how these effects vary by race, place, gender, and sociodemographic factors.

We employ causal, descriptive, quasi-experimental, and qualitative approaches, using a range of primary, secondary, and administrative data sources. Specific projects co-authored with graduate students include the effects of paid family leave programs on parent health and health behaviors; the inter-relations between childcare and economic instability in low-income families; and how the COVID-19 pandemic altered the time parents and children spend together and how.