When Diane Gibson set out to study obesity
in this country, she didn’t expect it would lead
to an invitation to sit on an expert panel assembled by
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). But Gibson’s
unexpected finding that participation in the food stamp
program was linked to obesity led the USDA to try to determine
whether this critical government social program had unintended
consequences. “Ultimately,” says Gibson, “the
panel is helping to influence the research priorities of
the USDA.”
Gibson, Assistant Professor at Baruch College,
City University of New York, has been teaching economics
in the School of Public Affairs since graduating from the
Harris School in 1999, where she received her PhD with
a focus on urban poverty and inequality and econometrics.
Gibson entered the Harris School with a goal of teaching
at the university level, and she is excited to be a part
of the Baruch faculty.
“Like many students in public
affairs and public policy, many of our students come to
these classes with a limited background in economics and
a good deal of apprehension about the subject. I feel that
one of my main jobs is to provide students with a supportive,
yet rigorous, environment in which to tackle these fears.”
Gibson
cites her course work in economics, research methods,
and policy analysis at the Harris School as the foundation
for her current research projects, projects that grew
out of her interest in poverty and the efficacy of policies
designed to solve poverty-related problems.
Her research
falls into three main areas: the relation between social
program participation and health, with a principal focus
on health outcomes related to weight; factors that influence
an individual’s weight, such as grocery
store availability and family environment; and the relation
between a neighborhood’s socioeconomic status and
the availability of amenities and economic development
incentives in the neighborhood.
She considers the Harris
School one of her principal sources of inspiration in her
role as teacher and researcher. “My
Harris School training factors into my work every day.
I learned a lot about how to teach well by watching the
professors at the Harris School. Also, the opportunity
to work as a research assistant and a teaching assistant
helped me develop my skills in research and teaching.”
“I feel like I’m making a difference in my
teaching because I’m helping students learn how to
think analytically. Whether they remember the specifics
of economics in the future, this type of thinking will
help them make strong arguments and understand the strengths
and weaknesses of the arguments of others.”
Barbara
Ray
Irene
Basloe Saraf, AM95
“It’s very exciting to be able to be doing
social justice work on an issue that I care so much about
and that I also find intellectually fascinating,” says
Irene Basloe Saraf, of her work with National Low Income
Housing Coalition (NLIHC) in Washington, D.C.
Basloe Saraf
first realized that public policy might be for her when
she was working on her senior thesis in the humanities
at Yale University. Emerging from a long stint in the library
working on an archival project, she came across a protest.
She heard the excitement in the voices of the protesters,
and she realized then that she didn’t
want to spend her life engaged in the past. “I want
to be engaged in the now,” she says.
Urban poverty
captured her attention at the Harris School, and pursuing
this interest brought Basloe Saraf to NLIHC where she
has been able to analyze, articulate, and advocate policies
that affect poor people in this country. It is the combination
of policy analysis and advocacy that has made her work
so rewarding.
“The first couple of times I went to Capitol Hill,
talking about the importance of housing, I kept thinking,
this is amazing. It’s exactly what I wanted to be
doing—to have the chance to talk about housing policy
and explain why it’s so important to work for social
justice in America.”
Basloe Saraf began her career with NLIHC
as Legislative Director, working closely with staff on
Capitol Hill to influence legislation and policy on low-income
housing. After relocating to Seattle, she took on a different
set of tasks, including working with the organization’s
state housing coalition partners around the country and
drafting and editing housing policy publications for NLIHC.
“Having begun my career in housing policy advocacy
at a state-level housing coalition here in Washington State,
it has been very exciting to facilitate the efforts of
state housing coalitions to influence federal housing policy,” she
says.
Basloe Saraf also edits NLIHC’s biannual NIMBY Report,
which examines attitudes about low-income housing in communities. “Even
if there were enough money available to build all the affordable
housing needed, we will still have to contend with misperceptions
about that housing, its quality, and its residents.”
With
the impending birth of her first child, Basloe Saraf
has moved to a consultant role with the coalition and plans
to search for a new policy position in Seattle after
her maternity leave.
Barbara Ray
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