Professor Melissa S. Kearney received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002, where she studied on a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received her BA in 1996 from Princeton University, graduating with Highest Honors. Her primary fields of interest are public finance and labor, with special interests in social policy issues and government programs relevant to low-income populations. She teaches in the area of public finance. She is a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a non-resident fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.