Social and Economic Inequality

My research focuses on social determinants of environmental contaminant exposures and health risks, especially among minority populations, and designing policy solutions to address these disparities. Additional areas of research and teaching interests include using exposure biomonitoring for policy analysis, cumulative risk assessment, health impact assessment, environmental health indicator development, children's environmental health and environmental health of minority populations.

Susan W. Parker is a professor in the School of Public Policy. Previously, she was a professor of economics at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. Her research focuses principally on education and health in developing countries and in particular on the evaluation of programs and public policies. She has particular interest in the areas of conditional cash transfer programs and targeting.

One of my ongoing interests is in developing quantitative spatial analytical methods that allow us to investigate how the population and its characteristics are unevenly distributed across space and may vary depending upon the geographic context.

Dr. Nguyen uses a variety of different data sources (including Big Data) and approaches (including quantitative and qualitative research methods) to advance our understanding of social determinants of health. Dr. Nguyen also leads the interdisciplinary research collaborative, Big Data for Health Equity (BD4HE). BD4HE comprises faculty, trainees, and students from universities across the U.S committed to advancing theories, methods, and findings related to the use of Big Data for health equity research.

Collin Mueller's program of research is conceptually grounded in life course, critical race, and cumulative advantage / disadvantage approaches. Mueller specializes in mixed methods research design, team-based ethnographic and in-depth interviewing techniques, and quantitative methods for analyzing longitudinal survey data. Dr.

My program of research examines the health of families impact by incarceration. Incarcerated people often represent the most marginalized within our society, including economic minorities, people of color, and undocumented citizens. I use both qualitative and quantitative research to identify the health, well-being, and resilience processes of individuals and families impacted by incarceration. In this way, my future research will employ population health data to better understand the effects of incarceration on family inequality and health.

Kris Marsh received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina before joining the faculty of Maryland in fall 2008. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology, and affiliate faculty of the Maryland Population Research Center, Department of Women’s Studies, and African American Studies Department.

My research uses rigorous quantitative evidence to evaluate and inform education policies at the national, state, and local levels, with the goal of improving learning opportunities for historically marginalized students in urban areas. My work broadly engages with critical policy issues including student absenteeism, exclusionary discipline, educator’s labor market, and school reform.

In my research, I combine my academic background in survey methodology, statistics, genetics, and computer science to develop statistical methods for efficiently designing and analyzing complex samples in population research area. Especially, my research interests focus on health disparity. I have been involved in research projects of:

Dr. Lewis' research investigates how macro-level institutionalized practices (e.g., municipal divestment, gentrification, policing, racism) influence conditions of unsafety in Black communities and inform the ways that Black people navigate daily life in the past and present.