Emilia Cooper

Emi Cooper finished her last year of an undergraduate degree in economics at Bard College in 2024, and is starting her first year of the Master of Science in Economic Theory and Policy at the Levy Economics Institute. Emi’s research interests are in the labor market and public policy, with a focus on the communities impacted by incarceration. She intends to write her master’s thesis about the criminalization of poverty, and propose a policy solution to this issue through publicly guaranteed employment. As a Black person and the daughter of a formerly incarcerated man, Emi is passionate about studying the prison industrial complex, the atrocities of mass incarceration and systemic racism, and the labor situation for formerly incarcerated individuals. Emi has also been an OSUN Global Fellow since 2022, serving as a leader of civic engagement on Bard campus and within the international network. During her gap year, Emi volunteered as a primary school teacher at a rural primary school on the Coast of Kenya. Since then, Emi has been independently fundraising to support the village, where poverty rates are high and employment opportunities are next to none. Emi is currently a research assistant for a quantitative analytics tech lead at Freddie Mac, conducting a study of discriminatory lending and credit practices.

Post Date: 07-20-2024