Dozens Represent Pardee RAND at APPAM Conference in Atlanta

November 14, 2023

A dozen Pardee RAND students and alumni, as well as 11 faculty and RAND colleagues, presented their research (or had it presented) at the APPAM Fall Research Conference in Atlanta.

Student Admissions Ambassadors Zara Abdurahaman, Heather Gomez-Bendaña, and Lucas Greer also represented Pardee RAND at the Career and Ph.D. Program Fair, helping to recruit future cohorts of students.

Student Presenters

Zara Abdurahaman (cohort '21) presented An Organizational Biotechnology Mapping System to Support Policy Makers and the General Public at the Saturday Poster Luncheon.

Meghan Franco (cohort '17) presented Modeling Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Exploring Regularities across the Economic and Biological Sciences during the Student Research Session.

Heather Gomez-Bendaña (cohort '19) presented The Impact of COVID-19 on Household Adaptation Among Families with Children with Disabilities: The Social Determinants of Health, Program Participation, and Educational Attainment during the Disability panel.

Lucas Greer (cohort '20) presented The Labor Market Prospects of Adult Learners with Online Bachelor's Degrees: A Correspondence Audit Field Experiment at the Friday Poster Reception.

Alex Sizemore (cohort '21) presented A Qualitative and Community-Engaged Analysis of Barriers People Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles Face When Filing SSI/SSDI Appeals during the panel on Poverty and Economic Well-Being.

Sizemore also acted as a discussant for the panel on Financial Health and Economic Security for People with Disabilities, during which a coauthor presented a paper he wrote with Lisa Berdie (cohort '20), The Financial Health of People with Disabilities.

View all Pardee RAND-affiliated entries in the APPAM program

Alumni Presenters

Hannah Acheson-Field (cohort '18) chaired the panel Getting Ready, into, and through College: Strategies to Support Postsecondary Readiness, Access, and Completion; a research paper she coauthored, Crossing the Finish Line: Impacts of a Transition Coaching Program on College Completion, was also presented during the panel.

She also presented What Can We Learn from the Maine Educational Opportunity Tax Credit? during the panel Investigating the Effects of Postsecondary Education Finance Policies.

Ashley Muchow (cohort '13) presented two papers: Framing an Immigrant Threat: Does Media Coverage Influence Local Involvement in Immigration Enforcement? during the panel on Outside Influences on Local Policymaking, and Exploring the Impact of Local Media Coverage on Ethnic Arrest Disparities during the panel on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System.

She also chaired the panel Internal and External Factors Affecting Immigrants’ Work, Educational, and Family Outcomes.

Claire O'Hanlon (cohort '13) presented Populations Served and Care Quality in Hospices Affiliated with Health Systems on the panel Policy Changes Affecting Medicare Beneficiaries and acted as a discussant for the Aging and Health panel.

Sujeong Park (cohort '15) presented Oxycontin Reformulation and Incidence of Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome at the Friday Poster Reception.

Bogdan Savych (cohort '02) presented Impact of Vertical Integration on Medical Payments, Use of Care, and Duration of Disability during the Disability panel.

A paper coauthored by Maya Buenaventura (cohort '14), Transition Age Foster Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Predicting Risk and Identifying Service Needs in Los Angeles, was presented during the panel on Institutional Responses to Child and Youth Housing Insecurity, and another paper coauthored by Yuyan Shi (cohort '05), Examining Cannabis Taxes through the Passage of Legalization: Standardizing the Tax Measure and Estimation of State Cannabis Prevalence, was presented during the panel on Risky Behavior.

Faculty and RAND Presenters

Professor Phil Armour presented Public Housing Assistance and Social Security Disability Program Participation during the panel on Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Disability Program Participation and Disabled Worker Outcomes. He also acted as a discussant for the panel on Making Social Security Disability Programs Work for Applicants and Beneficiaries: Individual Experiences and Options.

Professor Kathryn Edwards moderated the APPAM Communities session Women in Econ.

Kandice Kapinos chaired the panel Maternal Health. She and Sam Mann also moderated the APPAM Communities session First-Gen Researchers. Mann also presented Gender Transitions, Mental Health, and Family Support: A Retrospective Panel Analysis during the panel on Public Policy in LGBTQ+ Family Life.

Amy Mahler acted as a discussant for the panel on Early Career Experiences: Factors Driving Initial Placements and Long-Term Outcomes and presented The Impact of Working Conditions on Productivity: Evidence from the U.S. Public Defense System during the panel on Improving Outcomes for Indigent Clients of the U.S. Public Defense System.

Two papers by Professor Christine Mulhern were presented by coauthors on different panels: The Impacts of Expanding School Counseling on Children’s Mental Health and Academic Achievement was presented during the panel School-Based Interventions for Improving Children’s Mental Health and Educational Success, and STEM CTE Dual Enrollment Pathways: Participation and Impacts was presented during the panel Dual Credit, STEM, & CTE.

Umut Ozek presented two papers: Sibling Spillover Effects of Grade Retention during the panel on K-12 Educational Evaluations, and Does One Plus One Always Equal Two? Examining Complementarities in Educational Interventions during the panel on Educational Interventions and Evaluations. He also chaired the panel Multilingual Learner Experiences in U.S. Education: Present Outcomes, Promising Policies.

Additionally, a paper Ozek coauthored, Using Regression Discontinuity to Examine Whether Earning a Red or Orange Color on a Given Indicator Led California Principals to Put More Focus on Improving Student Outcomes and Implementing Instructional Strategies on the Area of Underperformance, was presented during the panel Principals and Evaluation.

Petra Rasmussen acted as a discussant for the panel Unintended Consequences of Health Insurance Policy Decisions.

Professor Stephanie Rennane presented Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of DI and SSI Beneficiaries during the panel Assessing the Role of Public Programs in Providing Economic Security to People with Disabilities; she was also the organizer of the panel and chaired another panel, Financial Health and Economic Security for People with Disabilities.

Daniel Siconolfi presented The Medicaid Balancing Incentive Program and Long-Term Institutionalization Among Older Adults at the Friday Poster Reception and then presented “Come Hell or High Water”: Stakeholder Visions for Policies and Programs That Could Improve Home- and Community-Based Services for Older Adults and Persons with Dementia during the Aging and Health panel.

Professor Rosanna Smart presented Substate Estimates of Firearm Ownership Rates over Time during the panel Reducing Firearm Death and Injury through Improved Policy.

View all RAND-affiliated entries in the APPAM program