As a professor at The Ohio State University, I have built a widely recognized record in the areas of labor and development economics. This started primarily within the traditional disciplinary space, with work focused on climate vulnerability, migration, and women’s decision-making power within the household. After tenure, I began investing more time in diversity, equity, and inclusion through my research, teaching, and outreach/engagement. My work on University-level initiatives also led me to address equity issues more directly in my research, and this work has been featured in CNBC, NPR, the BBC, and Nature, as well as receiving financial support from the Eos Foundation. Still, I continued to be frustrated by the limited reach of academic research, particularly in economics. This is summed up nicely in a recent Financial Times article, which notes that, “Academia rewards novelty rather than usefulness.” Our engagement continues to fall short of translating the research into actionable steps and tractable policies.

 

To explore how I could better drive data-driven decision making, I took an entrepreneurial leave at Amazon. In my role as Research Manager, I led a multi-disciplinary team of economists and research scientists. We owned all research related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in corporate employee outcomes. My team worked in a consultative capacity to identify regression-adjusted statistically significant demographic differences, provide robust impact evaluation for programs/policies initiated within business lines, and develop models for forecasting employment and labor force trends. We also monitored developments in DEI research and practice in order to proactively develop pilot programs that spanned multiple business lines. Our research has been used to inform headcount/budget allocation, recruiting priorities, hiring and promotion processes, and workforce retention efforts across the entire corporate workforce.

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I learned a tremendous amount during my tenure at Amazon but also felt that my ability to advocate for equitable policies was tempered by competing business and management priorities. Thus, I elected to return to my tenured faculty position at OSU, though now in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. In this space, I have more flexibility to invest in community-engaged research and advocacy. I am continuing my academic DEI research and exploring opportunities to expand this both within and beyond the university, including partnerships with the Office of Academic Affairs, The Women’s Place, Matriots of Ohio, and the City of Columbus.

 

I am passionate about building connections between academics and policymakers to highlight how rampant inequality limits economic growth and mobility. Economists, for the most part, have avoided normative commentary, but a “neutral” stance towards tradeoffs between efficiency and equity privileges the status quo, along with the systems and institutions that have created and perpetuate the inequalities we now contend with.