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Jennifer Ellen French
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Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
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ATLANTA — Labor and education economist Christopher Walters, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, will speak on “Experimental Approaches to Measuring Labor Market Discrimination” at the 19th annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture Monday, Feb. 17.
His presentation will be held at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, 55 Park Place NE, Atlanta, in the ninth-floor Seminar Room. It begins at 10:30 a.m.
Walters’ research focuses on topics in labor economics and the economics of education, including early childhood programs, school effectiveness and labor market discrimination. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Programs on Education and Labor Studies and a faculty affiliate at MIT Blueprint Labs, where he has served as a co-author on several studies of charter schools in Massachusetts. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) North America, a research fellow at IZA and an Amazon Scholar, and he is co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.
Walters has received honors including the 2024 UC Berkeley Social Science Distinguished Teaching Award. Recent grants include awards by the Gates Foundation (2023-25), Russell Sage Foundation (2022-23) and the Walton Family Foundation (2020-22). He holds a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“Since graduating from MIT in 2013, Chris has established himself as one of the leading scholars in both the economics of education and racial discrimination in labor markets,” said Tim Sass, the W.J. Usery Chair of the American Workplace. “His work has provided new evidence on many important issues, including charter school performance, the long-run impacts of pre-K programs and the measurement of racial discrimination in labor markets. We are excited to have Chris as this year’s Usery Distinguished Lecturer.”
The annual W.J. Usery Distinguished Lecture Series at the Andrew Young School features leading economists addressing important issues in the American workplace. The series, launched in 2005, honors the late W.J. “Bill” Usery Jr., formerly a U.S. Secretary of Labor and Distinguished Executive Fellow in Labor Policy at AYSPS. During his years of service in government and the private sector, Usery made an indelible contribution to the well-being of workers and the American workplace.
Those who cannot join the lecture in-person can register here to join online.