Bio
Lisa M. Lynch, is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy in Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Previously, she served as Brandeis University’s Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs from 2014-15 and 2016-2020, Interim President of Brandeis University from 2015 to 2016, and Dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management from 2008 to 2014. Lynch is currently a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and she has served as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor (1995-1997); director (2004-2009), chair (2007-2009) of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; and president of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (2013-2014). She has published extensively on the impact of technological change and organizational innovation (especially training) on productivity and wages, the determinants of youth unemployment, and the school-to-work transition, among other issues. She has been a faculty member at Tufts University, MIT, the Ohio State University, and the University of Bristol. Lynch earned her BA in economics and political science at Wellesley College, and her MSc. and PhD in economics at the London School of Economics.

Education
Ph.D., Economics, London School of Economics, 1983
M.S., Economics, London School of Economics, 1979
B.A., Economics and political science, Wellesley College, 1978

Education • Health • Race

Biography

Leila Morsy has been a research associate with EPI since 2015. She is the co-author of three EPI studies, Five Social Disadvantages that Depress Student Performance: Why Schools Alone Can’t Close Achievement Gaps; Mass Incarceration and Children’s Outcomes: Criminal Justice Policy is Education Policy; and Parents’ Non-Standard Work Schedules Make Adequate Childrearing Difficult: Reforming Labor Market Practices Can Improve Children’s Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes. Dr. Morsy’s research interests include race, socioeconomic inequality, and health inequities and children’s outcomes. Dr. Morsy can be contacted at leila.morsy@flinders.edu.au.

Education

Ed.D., Harvard University Graduate School of Education

Biography
Before joining the Center for American Progress in December of 2003, Christian Weller was a macro economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

Education
Ph.D. Economics, University of Massachusetts (Amherst), 1998
M.A. Economics, University of Massachusetts (Amherst), 1993
Intermediate Exam (B.A.) Economics, University of Konstanz (Germany), 1991

Biography
Robert Lynch is the Everett E. Nuttle professor of Economics at Washington College. His current research assesses the impact of public investment in early childhood education on government budgets, the economy, and crime. His most recent publication in this area is Enriching children, Enriching the Nation: Public Investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten (2007). He has also authored several works that have evaluated the adequacy and effectiveness of state and local government economic policies, reviewed government economic growth strategies, and analyzed the efficiency, fairness, and stability of state and local tax systems.

Education
Ph.D, Economics, State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook (1984)
M.A., Economics, SUNY Stony Brook (1981)
B.A., International and Development Economics, Georgetown University (1979)

Labor and employment law • International employment and labor law • Corporate social responsibility • Trade, manufacturing policy

Biography

Professor Herrnstadt currently is the Chief of Staff to the International President and Director of Trade and Globalization, at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. As Chief of Staff, he assists in running one of the largest manufacturing and transportation unions in the world. As Director of Trade and Globalization, he develops policy for international trade, economic investment, international labor standards, and human rights matters. In addition to the Law Center, he teaches as an adjunct professor at the American University’s Washington College of Law.

Education

B.S., M.S., J.D., University of Wisconsin

Education
Ph.D., Economics, University of Michigan
M.P.P., University of Michigan

Education policy • Early childhood education • Accountability systems • Racial and social justice

Biography

Elaine Weiss is an EPI research associate and the former National Coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. BBA was a national education policy campaign launched by the Economic Policy Institute to call attention to the many impacts of poverty-related impediments to effective teaching and learning and promote strategies to mitigate those impacts. She authored in-depth case studies of diverse communities across the country that employ integrated student supports to advance whole-child education systems. Those studies are the basis for her book, co-authored with Paul Reville Broader, Bolder, Better: How Schools and Communities Help Students Overcome the Disadvantages of Poverty (Harvard Education Press, June 2019). Dr. Weiss’s research interests include early childhood education, incorporating community voice in school improvement, and education policies that advance racial and social justice.

Education

Ph.D., Public Policy, George Washington University
J.D., Harvard Law School

Biography
Elliott D. Sclar is Professor of urban planning and public affairs at Columbia University. He holds senior academic appointments in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and the School of International and Public Affairs. He has been on the Columbia University faculty since 1978 and is currently the director of graduate programs in urban planning. He has been on the Columbia faculty since 1978. His latest book “You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization,” has won two major academic prizes, the Louis Brownlow Award for the Best Book of 2000 from the National Academy of Public Administration and the 2001 Charles Levine Prize from the International Political Science Association for a major contribution to the public policy literature. He is presently the coordinator of a global task force established in conjunction with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The task force’s mission is to devise global strategies to improve the lives of at least 100 million people living in urban poverty by the year 2020.

Education
Ph.D., Tufts University (1972)
M.A., Tufts University (1966)
B.A., Hofstra University (1963)

Biography
Gordon Lafer is a political economist and is a Professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center.  He has written widely on issues of labor and employment policy, and is author of The Job Training Charade (Cornell University Press, 2002).  Lafer has served as an economic policy analyst for the Office of the Mayor in New York City and has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislatures.  Lafer is the founding co-chair of the American Political Science Association’s Labor Project, and has taught as a visiting faculty member at the University of Massachusetts’ Union Leadership Academy and at the Universidad Latina de America in Michoacan, Mexico.  In 2009–2010, Lafer took leave from his faculty position to serve as Senior Labor Policy Advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.

Education
Ph.D. Political Science, Yale University, 1995
B.A., Economics, Swarthmore College, 1983