Air pollution can have serious consequences for a person’s quality of life. Inhaling high concentrations of “fine particulate matter,” or particles approximately 40 times smaller than a grain of sand, has been linked to cancer, heart disease, and even death Jonathan Colmer told an online audience last week.

Parag A. Pathak is the Jane Berkowitz Carlton and Dennis William Carlton Professor of Microeconomics at MIT, found­ing co-director of the NBER Working Group on Market Design, and founder of MIT’s School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative (SEII), a laboratory focused on education, human capital, and the income distribution.

Jointly sponsored by Curry, Economics, and the Frank Batten School

Leora Friedberg is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the Batten School and an associate professor and Vice Chair at UVA's Department of Economics. Her focus is on labor economics, including research on social security, aging and retirement economic impacts.

Charles Holt is a professor of economics and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the A. Willis Robertson Professor of Political Economy at the University of Virginia. Holt is also the current Director of the Experimental Economics Laboratory at Virginia, where he develops and programs the web-based VeconLab experiments that are widely used for teaching and research with over 90,000 participant logins per year.

Ed Olsen is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Virginia, where he has served as chairman of the economics department and was heavily involved in the creation and development of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Olsen's teaching and research has focused on public policy issues, especially concerning the welfare system. Within this broad area, his research specialty is low-income housing policy.

John V. Pepper is a professor of economics and public policy at the Batten School and a professor of economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia. His work examines identification problems that arise when evaluating a wide range of public policy questions including such subjects as health and disability programs, welfare policies (e.g., SNAP), and drug and crime policies.

Jay Shimshack is a professor of public policy and economics as well as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Shimshack's research focuses on environmental regulation, environmental economics, corporate social behavior, and applied microeconomics for public policy. 

Sarah Turner is a University Professor of economics, education and public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Souder Family Endowed Professor. Much of her research focuses on post-secondary education, where she explores the intersection of education and economics policies.