Co-Directors
Rebecca M. Blank is Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, and Professor of Economics. In the 2007-08 academic year she is on leave as the Robert V. Kerr Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. From 1999-2007 she was dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Prior to this she served as a Member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1997-1999. She was also Professor of Economics at Northwestern University and served as the first Director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
Professor Blank’s research has focused on the interaction between the macroeconomy, government anti-poverty programs, and the behavior and well-being of low-income families. Her book, It Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty, was published by Princeton University Press in 1997 and won the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations. Her more recent work includes the book Working and Poor (jointly edited with Sheldon Danziger and Robert Schoeni), published by Russell Sage Press, Is the Market Moral? (coauthored with William McGurn), published by Brookings Press, and The New World of Welfare (jointly edited with Ron Haskins) published by Brookings Press.
Sheldon
H. Danziger is the Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of
Public Policy and Research Professor at the Population
Studies Center. He is author and co-editor of numerous books and
articles including: America Unequal; Detroit Divided; Understanding
Poverty; Securing the Future: Investing in Children From Birth
To College; Child Poverty and Deprivation in the Industrialized
Countries; Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes are Affecting Low-Wage Workers and The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood.
Professor Danziger’s research focuses on welfare reform, and on the effects of economic, demographic, and public policy changes on trends in poverty and inequality. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, co-Director of the National Poverty Center, and Director of the Research and Training Program on Poverty and Public Policy. Professor Danziger received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.