About Susan Mayer

Susan E. Mayer, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the College, served as dean of Harris from 2002 to 2009. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on the measurement of poverty, the effect of growing up in poor neighborhoods, and the effect of parental income on children's well-being. She is currently doing research on intergenerational economic mobility and on using behavioral insights to help low-income adults become better parents.

Mayer has been a member of the Institutes of Medicine, National Research Council, Board on Children, Youth and Families, the Board of Directors of Chapin Hall Center for Children, and the Board of Advisors for the Pew Charitable Trust Economic Mobility Project. She has also been a member of the General Accounting Office Educators' Advisory Panel, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics Panel to Review U.S. Department of Agriculture's Measurement of Food Insecurity and Hunger, and the Committee on Standards of Evidence and the Quality of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Mayer has an honorary Doctor of Laws degreed conferred by Lake Forest College. Mayer is the past director and deputy director of the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research. She has served as an associate editor for the American Journal of Sociology.