In last month's blog, you met a Simmons alumna whose field, epidemiology, saves lives by preventing or controlling disease. But, we all have financial lives, too, and the recent gyrations of the stock market have certainly struck home that we need to look out for our financial health.
This month we'll be speaking with Simmons alumna, Ashley Provencher, Class of 2006, who is deeply committed to understanding the conditions of poverty, and especially to understanding how to utilize public policy to lift individuals out of poverty. Ashley, who double-majored in math and economics at Simmons, is in her third year at American University where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in economics. I think you'll agree that Ashley's combination of personal commitments and strong academic training equip her to tackle this deeply rooted, complex social problem.
Ashley Provencher, B.S. in Mathematics and Economics, 2006; Master of Arts in Economics, 2008
- How did you get interested in math, Ashley?
I liked math in grammar school - I even enjoyed times tables! When I arrived at Simmons for orientation, I had no idea what I was going to take. When I picked up the course catalog, I thought, I'm good at math, so I'll start there. The thing I didn't know was economics. I remember that there was a "modes" requirement and that I had to pick one or two courses from each of the six modes categories. I decided to take Microeconomics and Calculus I together in my first semester. I figured that I'd always be able to link math to economics. - What did you think you wanted to do with math?
I knew it was something I always enjoyed. I always liked doing my homework - getting the right answer is always so gratifying! When I fell in love with economics, I discovered it helped me get from the abstract level of mathematics to everyday life and decision-making. - How do you use math on a daily basis?
Well, today I spent four hours running regression to predict female head-of-house need for childcare. The decision to go to work is simultaneously the decision to seek childcare. We're looking to see what predicts women's demand for child care. Later in the day I led a study group where, among other things, we noted that the model of an individual household as a unitary entity making decisions doesn't really fit reality since there's bargaining power relationship between couples. A lot of social science is trying to guess whether a relationship is linear or binomial and then trying to see how the guess pans out based on data. However, you're usually using proxies, so it's impossible to get a precise match between a mathematical model and real-life. You always fall short. - As an undergraduate, how did you spend your time and energies outside the classroom? How did your knowledge of math support your passions?
I've always been interested in understanding poverty. I saw poverty in my hometown, Norwich, a rural town in eastern Connecticut, but I observed it on a grander scale in Boston. In my first year at Simmons, I worked in the America Reads program in Dorchester as a service learning activity for my microeconomics course. I came to understand that economics is not just about pricing and money. It's day-to-day involvement, it's decision-making, it's behavior. Some of the kids we saw were from struggling homes, e.g., homes where there were drug problems or where a father had been killed in a drive-by shooting. The eye-opener was seeing how the community worked together - or not - in the midst of those struggles. The America Reads program ran in the afternoon or sometimes first thing in the morning, before school began. Many parents were hard-pressed to pick up their children because they were either working extra hours or working late. A lot of kids went home to families where there was no one to read to them or help them with homework because they lived in a single parent household or in a non-English speaking home.
At Simmons, a lot of my internships involved working with Massachusetts state agencies where I got to see how the government distributes money across the state.
In the summer following my sophomore year, I worked at the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a non-partisan research group downtown that's been around for decades. This was a wonderful, small, research group. I got to understand the Massachusetts Chapter 70 School Aid formula and see how the money is allocated and spent.
In fall semester of my senior year, I was able to write a research program under an economist at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was an amazing opportunity to work under an economist and have the experience of writing something very technical!
My last internship ran from winter 2006 until the end of summer 2006 when I started graduate school in economics at American University. I worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the New England Public Policy Center. There I worked on numerous projects, did lots of support work like writing policy briefs, interacted with prestigious individuals, but also had the opportunity to work with peers. The latter was very important to me because at my other two internships, I didn't have a working relationship with people my own age. Working with peers gave me good friends who seemed as driven as I was to go directly on to the Ph.D., and who didn't think that this was crazy! Working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, of course, broadened my exposure to economics. - Where do you see yourself in five years? How will math help you get there?
I think I want to work at the community and state legislative level to address urban poverty. I'd like to graduate in the next 1-2 years. Right now my research centers on U.S. children in poverty. I want to work on policy that affects children who live in poverty, especially policy that helps give them increased social mobility. This requires me to look at a data set and see patterns and, even before that, to design survey tools which get at patterns.
Farther down the road I want to continue to focus on urban poverty. I think that to really have an impact, everyone needs to be involved, not just government agencies. I was happiest when I had my hands in everything: working at the community level, working with government agencies, and working with a think tank to shape good policy. I'm more inclined toward working with the local community and state legislature. I really want to get my hands dirty at the local level, on a daily basis, and help states figure out ways to assist communities. In my internship at the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, I learned that the Chapter 70 School Aid Formula gets revisited every 5 years, and voted on every 10 years. At the federal level, legislators have argued for 40 years to change the poverty level but there's been no change. It's harder to affect change at the federal level because, unless there's an issue that cuts across all 50 states, it's difficult to get legislation passed.
What I've seen for myself and my friends is that what matters is not whether you have a plan for what to do with your life right after graduation. What really matters is knowing what makes you happy. You should love what you're doing!
If you have questions for Ashley or about this series of math portraits, we hope you'll write!
Leave a comment