Kelsey Pukelis

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I am an empirical public economist and policy researcher studying U.S. social safety net policy.

I am currently a Principal Researcher with the California Department of Social Services' Research, Automation & Data Division. In my role, I conduct research using quantitative analytical methods and administrative data to inform program decision-making, improve department processes, promote program integrity, and evaluate impacts on participants. My work currently focuses on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California.

In Spring 2025, I earned my Ph.D. in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. My dissertation and prior research focuses on the economics of SNAP, including the impacts of work requirements, online grocery shopping, and stigma. I primarily apply quasi-experimental methods to publicly available and administrative data. I also design surveys and experiments to understand people's beliefs and attitudes about social issues. By acquiring deep contextual knowledge and applying insights from economics and other social sciences, my goal is to deepen our understanding of the consequences of policy design choices in part by incorporating the perspective of individuals who are affected by them.

I maintain a Research Fellow appointment with the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State & Local Government (unpaid). Previously at Harvard, I was a PhD Scholar in the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality, and Social Policy, an awardee of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and an affiliate of the Social Economics Lab and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. I am also an alumna of the Mosaic Economic Project, which provides training in policy communication for women in economics and technology. I also worked as a Research Intern at Microsoft Research New England and a full-time research assistant at the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. I earned a B.A. with honors in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, Economics, and Mathematics from Northwestern University.

Recent & Upcoming

Apr 2026: Best Paper Award, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2026 for "Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply" (with Colin Gray, Adam Leive, Elena Prager, and Mary Zaki)

Jun 2026: Presenting paper at National Bureau of Economic Research conference on Geography and Health: Exploring Rural-Urban Disparities: "From Storefronts to Screens: The Impacts of Online Grocery Shopping on Public Food Assistance Users"