Dr. Jess Carson is a Research Assistant Professor with the Carsey School of Public Policy in New Hampshire. Since joining Carsey in 2010, she has studied how community context affects people’s ability to make ends meet through work and the social safety net. She has particular interest in the multi-dimensional nature of food access, structural issues surrounding access to child care, and in measuring how policy and program effects vary within and across rural places.
Jess is working on several long-term projects related to the uneven social and economic effects of the pandemic, with the goal of informing policy for an equitable recovery. She is a lifelong Granite Stater and has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of New Hampshire.