Melissa Kearney

Melissa S. Kearney is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, where she has been on the faculty since 2006. She is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a faculty affiliate of the Notre Dame Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO), and an affiliated scholar of J-PAL. Past positions include director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings, Mellon Fellow at Brookings, and assistant professor at Wellesley College.

Kearney's research focuses on issues of social policy, poverty, and inequality and has been published in leading economics journals. Much of her research has focused on the effect of government programs and economic conditions on the behaviors and outcomes of economically disadvantaged populations. Kearney received her Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 and her B.A. from Princeton University in 1996. She studied on a National Science Graduate Research Fellowship and a Harry S Truman Scholarship.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D., Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2002)
• B.A., Princeton University (1996).