PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – Professor of Economics and Public Policy Anna Aizer has been a PSTC faculty associate since she arrived at Brown in 2003. Now she is serving as the first female chair of Brown’s Department of Economics.

Aizer, a labor and health economist with interests in the area of child health and well-being, was also the first woman to earn tenure in the Department of Economics at Brown. She became an associate professor in 2010 and a full professor in 2016 and has been a leader in working to increase the representation of women in economics.

Six of the nine female economics faculty members at Brown are also PSTC faculty associates. In addition to Aizer, they include Professors Justine Hastings and Emily Oster, University President Christina Paxson, Assistant Professor Bryce Steinberg, and Distinguished Senior Lecturer Rachel Friedberg, who is the longest serving female economics faculty member. 

Aizer, along with Oster, organizes the weekly Economics Health Breakfast at the PSTC. She is also co-director of the Children’s Program for the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Prior to coming to Brown, Aizer completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University, and a PhD in economics from UCLA. Her research has examined the impact of public programs on child health and well-being and the economic determinants and consequences of domestic violence. The focus of her current work is the intergenerational transmission of health and income.