Princeton University’s Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW) hosted three visiting scholars this spring to conduct research on critical health issues, from Medicaid policy implications to physician burnout and the connection between environment and public health.

The visits were arranged and funded through CHW’s Visiting Research Scholars Program, which invites faculty from leading institutions to spend either an academic year or a semester in residence at Princeton. While on campus, visitors focus on research, discussion, and scholarly collaborations concerning the determinants of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing along with the impact of public policy on health and wellness. This often includes presenting their work in various forums, mentoring students, and advising senior theses. 

Spring 2025 Visiting Research Scholars

Krista Ruffini

Krista Ruffini, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, was considering a career in journalism when an introductory microeconomics course opened her mind to a new framework for exploring complicated problems, such as health and income inequalities. 

Fascinated by the interplay between economics and public policy, Ruffini pursued a college internship in the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s office. “I had a lot of conversations with his constituents during the foreclosure crisis, who didn’t know what to do or where to turn,” she explained. “It underscored how programs through the federal safety net had the potential to affect the livelihoods of millions of people in many different circumstances. I became interested in how they work and how they can best serve the people who need them.” 

Ruffini began her career in Washington, D.C., doing policy-oriented research with think tanks and then at the White House. While valuable, she grew frustrated by the rapid-fire nature of the policy environment and pivoted to academia, where she could dive into the issues on a deeper level. After earning an M.P.A. in public and economic policy from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. in economics and Ph.D. in public policy from UC-Berkeley, Ruffini joined the faculty at Georgetown.

Ruffini’s research examines how income assistance and labor market policies affect disadvantaged populations. She has increasingly shifted her focus from the employment effects to measures of wellbeing, such as educational attainment and health outcomes. 

While at Princeton, Ruffini has explored the impact of pandemic-era stimulus payments and school-based nutritional assistance programs on family wellbeing. In fact, she is working with Janet Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and co-director of CHW, on a project measuring how the beginning of the school year can influence a child’s diet. Ruffini is also looking at whether Medicaid policies incentivize higher staffing levels in long-term care settings and, in turn, improve patient outcomes. 

“My year at Princeton has stimulated new research ideas and facilitated collaborations,” said Ruffini. “I’m really inspired to work on academic research that is policy-informing and has direct relevance to current settings. Luckily, there’s never a dull moment in policy development, so there are always new questions for which we need answers.”

Soodeh Saberian

Soodeh Saberian, associate professor in the Department of Economics at University of Manitoba and research affiliate at the Institute for Labor Economics, is an applied environmental economist whose research lies at the intersection of environmental, health, and labor economics. 

For Saberian, there was never any question that she was heading toward a career in academia. “Since I was five years old, I wanted to be a teacher,” she said. Combining that aspiration with an interest in economics, she pursued an undergraduate degree and an M.A. in energy economics in her home country of Iran before immigrating to Canada and continuing her education at University of Ottawa, where she received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in economics.

During graduate school, Saberian came across an article about the economic value of teeth, which proved consequential. The research found that women with access to fluorinated water during childhood earned more than women who did not – a connection that fascinated her and guided the trajectory of her career. 

Saberian was also profoundly influenced by Janet Currie. “Janet has been one of the biggest inspirations in my research,” she said, recalling their first encounter at an economics conference in Canada. The introduction led to a collaborative project on the causal effects of wildfires on mental health and contributed to Saberian’s overall research focus on how environmental factors, such as air pollution and temperature, impact health, educational achievements, and other human outcomes.

During her time at Princeton, Saberian launched a project with Currie and Joan Costa-Font, a former CHW visitor from the London School of Economics and Political Science, about a potential link between light contamination and sleep quality as well as mental health. She and Currie are also collaborating on a study probing the effects of natural disaster on the Indigenous community in Canada. 

“The visit has shaped my path in ways I could not have imagined,” noted Saberian. “The resources, seminars, and networking have been fantastic, and I’m researching at a level I never thought possible.”

Jessica Van Parys

Jessica Van Parys is an associate professor in the Economics Department at Hunter College, CUNY and a research associate in the Economics of Aging Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Van Parys’ light bulb moment came during an undergraduate course about law and economics, which taught her how economics could be used not only to inform tax or monetary policy, but also policies related to health, welfare, and education. The course exposed different ways of leveraging economics to benefit society, transforming her “practical major” into a passionate pursuit and the fulcrum of her career. 

After receiving undergraduate degrees in economics and political science from University of Georgia, along with an M.A. in economics, Van Parys earned her Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. Intrigued by the rich data sets available in the health domain, she homed in on health economics under the mentorship of Janet Currie, who was there at the time. “The stars aligned, and I've been doing health work ever since,” she said.

“For better or worse [as a researcher], there are so many problems related to health. It feels like standing in front of a fire hose at times, not sure which problem to pick off next,” explained Van Parys. “The hope is that you walk away from the research having learned something, and that policymakers will take note and respond with policies that positively change people's lives.”

The bulk of Van Parys’ current research focuses on social determinants of health disparities. At Princeton, she is studying issues around access to care, such as which patients have access to the highest quality providers. For example, one of her projects looks at barriers in access to care facing individuals with disabilities. She is also examining determinants of physician burnout, as well as the role of affordable housing in women’s health. “I'm finding that being born in a neighborhood that receives more affordable housing is associated with better health outcomes, particularly for Black women,” she noted. 

Van Parys has enjoyed contributing to Princeton’s intellectual community during her semester on campus. “The visit has been a productive and impactful experience,” she said, highlighting progress in her research, fruitful engagements with both faculty and students, and the potential for future collaborations.