Economic Inequality and Its Implications for Youth

Presented by Trina R. WIlliams Shanks, PhD, Associate Director Vivian A. & James L. Curtis Research Training Center Associate Professor, School of Social Work University of Michigan

Dr. Shanks is currently Associate Professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She has a PhD in Social Work from Washington University and a Masters in Comparative Social Research from the Univerity of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Her Research interest include the impact of poverty and wealth on child well-being; asset building policy and practice across the life cycle; and community and economic development.

Dr. Shanks is currently one of the national network co-leads for the Social Work Grand Challenge: Reversing Extreme Economic Inequality. She has been a research investigator for the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) demonstration problem and consults with several other child savings account initiatives, including one started in Lansing Public Schools and at a non-profit organization in Detroit.