AREAS OF RESEARCH
Economic Security
SP2’s Centers and Faculty demonstrate the School’s expertise in income inequality, economic mobility, universal basic income, and the labor market impact of public policies.
Featured Centers
Center for Guaranteed Income Research
Center for Social Mobility and Prosperity
FEATURED FACULTY
Femida Handy, PhD
Professor; PhD, York (Canada), 1995. Volunteering; volunteering & health; global philanthropy; corporate social responsibility; environmental habitus.
FEATURED FACULTY
Ioana E. Marinescu, PhD
Associate Professor; PhD, London School of Economics, 2007. Imperfect competition in the labor market, antitrust, and competition policy as applied to the labor market; evaluation of the labor market impact of public policies, e.g. unemployment insurance and the minimum wage; unconditional cash transfers, the universal basic income; technology and structural changes in the labor market; green jobs.
FEATURED FACULTY
Amy Beth Castro, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, CUNY Hunter, 2014. Economic mobility; guaranteed income; innovation; how social policies produce gender and race disparities in housing and lending.
FEATURED FACULTY
Meredith Doherty, PhD, LCSW
Assistant Professor; PhD, Graduate Center of CUNY. Financial burden of serious illness; cancer disparities; access to healthcare; healthcare-based social needs interventions; palliative care and oncology social work; dissemination and implementation science.
FEATURED FACULTY
ChiaKo Hung, MA, MPA, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Arizona State University. Nonprofit financial management, social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, fundraising management, collaborative governance, social equity, social impact.
FEATURED FACULTY
Alice Xu, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Harvard University. Inequality and social policy, urban and distributive politics, environmental politics, quantitative and spatial methods, Latin America, Global South.
Related News
Faculty & Research
01/09
SP2 at SSWR 2026: Leading for Transformative Change
Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) is proud to participate in the 30th Annual Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Conference, taking place January 14 –18, 2026, in Washington, D.C.
Faculty & Research
12/10
Breaking down misconceptions on unconditional cash programs
As part of the Politics of Well-Being series, associate professors Amy Castro and Ioana Marinescu shared findings from their research on guaranteed income and universal basic income.
Faculty & Research
12/04
How might AI shape the future of work?
Computer scientist Konrad Kording and economist Ioana Marinescu have developed an interactive model that incorporates assumptions from both their fields to predict how AI will affect wages, jobs, and the overall economy.