National Children’s Study Federal Advisory Committee Member
Dr. Cancian is Professor of Public Affairs and Social Work and Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research considers the work and income of women who have received welfare, the implications of child support policy for the well-being of divorced and never-married families, and the impact of married women’s growing employment and earnings on marriage patterns and the inter- and intra-household distribution of income. A Principal Investigator for the Child Support Demonstration Evaluation from 1997–2006, her ongoing related research considers the implications of multiple partner fertility for family organization and policy, as well as the interaction of the incarceration and child support systems.
Dr. Cancian has been a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and a Visiting Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. She is Vice President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management and serves on the advisory boards of the University of Michigan National Poverty Center and the University of Chicago Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. She received her doctorate in Economics from the University of Michigan.