The Research Team

Principal Investigators

Research Support

Marcella Cartledge Jin

Marcella is a Research Fellow at the Jain Family Institute (JFI) and a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. During her time at JFI, Marcella has assisted on several randomized controlled trial evaluations, including the Compton Guaranteed Income Experiment and the Maricá Basic Income Evaluation. Previously, Marcella worked as an economic analyst at TD Securities and a research assistant at the London School of Economics. She also holds an MA in Economics from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Arizona State University.

Ajay Chaudry

Ajay is a research professor at NYU and has led several longitudinal qualitative research studies that track the dynamics of low-income families closely over years, including in New York City communities. The deep grounding in how low- income families experience policies, has been critical to informing his approach to policy developments in senior public service positions in New York City and the US federal government.

Roberta Costa

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH MANAGER

Roberta Mendes has Ph.D. in Economics at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF) and a MA in Economics from the same university. She works as research manager at JFI. Roberta is a fellow at the Center for Studies on Inequality and Development. Her research interests are welfare economics and applied microeconomics, with a focus on economics of education and labor economics.

Aneliesa Cartledge

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH ANALYST

Aneliesa is a Research Analyst for the Los Angeles Youth Wellbeing Study. Previously, Aneliesa worked two summers as an Investment Banking Summer Analyst at Barclays. She holds a bachelors degree in Finance with a minor in Economics from Fordham University, where she played NCAA DI volleyball for four years.

Ellie Witwer

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH MANAGER

 Ellie is a Research Manager at New York University. She has over a decade of experience overseeing mixed-methods research studies exploring health and well-being of individuals. She received her MPH from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Before joining NYU, she managed national studies on reproductive health access at the Guttmacher Institute, and oversaw practice-based research projects in family medicine clinics at the University of Washington.