Sarah K. Cowan
Founder and Executive Director of the Cash Transfer Lab, Sarah K. Cowan is a social demographer and Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University. Professor Cowan has researched, with Kiara Douds, the effect of annual Permanent Fund Dividend transfers in Alaska on childbearing and reproductive justice. That work was funded by the Economic Security Project. Her prior work examined abortion and people keeping secrets from each other. She has expertise in American fertility, social networks, and survey methodology. Prior to joining the NYU Department of Sociology, Sarah K. Cowan was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Fellow at Columbia University. She received her PhD in Sociology and Demography from UC Berkeley.
Erica Hobby
Assistant Director and Senior Research at the Cash Transfer Lab, Erica Hobby has a Masters of Public Administration from NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Erica’s degree and research focuses on public policy analysis and quantitative methods. In addition to work with the lab's operations and research, Erica's research explores the relationship between pregnancy intentions and infant, maternal, and early childhood outcomes. Erica also worked with Professor Cowan and Kiara Douds with their work on the Alaska PFD and reproductive justice as a research assistant at NYU.
Robert Pickett
Robert Pickett is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cash Transfer Lab. Robert received his PhD in Sociology and Demography from UC Berkeley where he explored the interplay between quantitative methods and constructionist race theory. In the lab, Robert works on statistical approaches to identify the causal effects of the PFD.
Kiara Wyndham Douds
Kiara Wyndham Douds is a Sociology PhD Candidate at New York University. Kiara researches the production of racial inequality in the United States. With Sarah K. Cowan, Kiara has examined the effect of PFD transfers in Alaska on reproductive inequalities. In their other work, Kiara focuses on the spatialized nature of racial inequality with a focus on suburban communities. Read more on their website.
Jennifer Hill
Jennifer Hill is Professor of Applied Statistics; Director of Center for Practice and Research at the Intersection of Information, Society, and Methodology; and Co-Director of Applied Statistics for Social Science Research Masters Program at New York University. Professor Hill develops and evaluates methods that help us answer the causal questions that are vital to policy research and scientific development. In particular she focuses on situations in which it is difficult or impossible to perform traditional randomized experiments, or when even seemingly pristine study designs are complicated by missing data or hierarchically structured data. Professor Hill is the author, along with Andrew Gelman, of Data Analysis using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models and Regression and Other Stories.
Hunter Meachum
Hunter Meachum grew up on her ancestral homelands in Southeast Alaska. She is Tlingit of the Eagle moiety and Kaagwaantaan from the Two Door House and the House on the Water. Hunter holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder and is currently studying public policy at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Most recently, Hunter was a legislative aide for Representative Sara Hannan at the Alaska State Legislature, where the issue of the Permanent Fund Dividend is extremely salient. Hunter is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Cash Transfer Lab.
Amariah DeJesus
Amariah DeJesus is the Special Projects Analyst of the Cash Transfer Lab, Assistant to the Senior Associate Deans of the Faculty of Arts and Science, and a current graduate student pursuing a Masters Degree in Professional Writing from NYU’s School of Professional Studies. At the lab, Amariah handles administrative duties in fiscal affairs, communications, and digital media.