Dr. Melinda Petre works with Dr. Greg Duncan, Dr. Marianne Bitler and Dr. Maria Rosales Rueda in the School of Education. Melinda’s research focuses on the returns to cognitive and non-cognitive skills in various labor market contexts, gender in the workplace and educational responses to economic conditions.
Melinda received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.A. in Mathematics & Statistics and Economics from Swarthmore College. Her postdoctoral fellowship is supported by the Irvine Network on Interventions in Development. Before coming to UCI, she spent a year as a national Poverty Fellow, working with the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation under the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services.