for the Study of Human Resources
Alanna Burney is the Ray Marshall Center’s Senior Research Program Coordinator. She handles all aspects of the Center’s research administration, specializing in pre-award through post-award. She also takes on the role as the Center’s administrative and operations manager. Ms. Burney joined the RMC in August 2011.
Jordan Lindbeck (she/her) is currently seeking a Masters of Public Affairs in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research and career interests are immigration policy and nonprofit program evaluation.
Jordan brings with her several years of experience working in domestic and international nonprofits. Most recently she was a Community Engagement Specialist and Financial Coach for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville, Virginia, working to bring affordable homeownership options to low-income, immigrant, and refugee families. She served as Board Chair of the Ixtatán Foundation, whose mission is to increase access to quality education for indigenous Mayan students in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Jordan has also supported immigration legal teams by providing translation and performing intake interviews for asylum claims at an ICE detention facility. At the LBJ School, Jordan hopes to hone her skills as a policy and program analyst to better inform and support community-driven change.
Jordan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Virginia. Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, she has also lived in Vermont, Spain, Guatemala, and now Texas. In her free time, Jordan enjoys cooking, tedious-but-satisfying needlepoint projects, and long walks with her sweet hound dog, Lucy.
The Ray Marshall Center hired a new Social Science Research Associate (SSRA V), David McCoy, on September 6, 2022. Mr. McCoy comes to the RMC from the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Political Science, where he earned a master’s in political science before pursuing a PhD (currently ABD). He will work on a range of projects with the RMC, including research on education policy and the development of panel data sets that extract insights from individual- and firm-level unemployment insurance data.
Prior to joining the Center, David has focused on the impacts of social assistance policy innovations in local Brazilian government, using mixed methods research design. He has experience generating useful insights from complex, observational data in a range of settings. Recent projects include: the automated coding of 150,000 transcribed statements by legislators to identify the salience of subject matter form a custom dictionary of terms; using quasi-experimental methods, such as matching and difference-in-differences, to identify the short- and medium-term economic shocks to local economies following an unexpected mass migration event in Brazil; and modeling the workplace network density of public sector employees to test differing network structures are associated with greater job satisfaction.
Read more about David here.
David McCoy joined the Ray Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resources as a Research Associate in the fall of 2022. His research at the Center focuses on measuring effectiveness of education policy interventions and the development of a panel data set identifying insights into firm- and individual-level behavior from unemployment insurance data.
Prior to joining the Center, David has focused on the impacts of social assistance policy innovations in local Brazilian government, using mixed methods research design. This involved cleaning, validating, and assessing the dimensionality of data from panel surveys that measured policy attributes in 5,570 Brazilian municipalities, as well as semi-structured interviews with key state actors and stakeholders in civil society. He has experience generating useful insights from complex, observational data in a range of settings. Recent projects include: the automated coding of 150,000 transcribed statements by legislators to identify the salience of subject matter form a custom dictionary of terms; using quasi-experimental methods, such as matching and difference-in-differences, to identify the short- and medium-term economic shocks to local economies following an unexpected mass migration event in Brazil; and modeling the workplace network density of public sector employees to test whether differing network structures are associated with greater job satisfaction.
David received a BA in English from Louisiana State University in 2007 and a master’s in Latin American Studies from Tulane University in 2013. He received a master’s degree in political science in 2017 from the University of Pittsburgh, where he is currently ABD in his PhD studies in political science. He has also worked as an educator in various settings: as an English teacher in Spain, Nicaragua and Brazil; a high school Spanish teacher; an adjunct professor of Spanish and Portuguese; and an instructor of undergraduate political science courses.
The LBJ School’s Dean JR DeShazo recently selected Dr. Greg Cumpton to serve as Co-Director of the Ray Marshall Center along with Dr. Heath Prince.
Dr. Greg Cumpton joined the Ray Marshall Center in 2004 as a Graduate Research Assistant. During his time at the Center, he served as a Systems Analyst, a Social Science Research Associate V, a Research Associate, and Associate Director, prior to being named Co-Director. Greg received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and his Master of Public Affairs and his Doctorate in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
Greg’s research focuses on finding solutions to poverty. He says, “Poverty is a trap that once individuals and their families fall into may take many decades and even generations to escape. Poverty collectively cascades its effects across entire regions, producing lower educational attainment, poorer long-term health consequences, and reduced economic output. All of which hamper the ability of individuals and their families to reach their full potential. We must acknowledge and address the personal and societal barriers faced by those trapped by poverty.” Much of his work concentrates on the evaluation of education and training programs, ensuring that program completers find high quality jobs which improve initial and long-term income.
Greg contributes to local activities intended to provide a greater voice for workers. Greg has served for six years as the Leadership Development Committee lead on the Board of Black Star Co-op, a member-owned worker-run brewpub. BSCO’s Workers’ Assembly enacts and advocates for worker-focused policies, including paying a living wage, providing healthcare, paid time off, and paid sick leave. Greg is serving his third year as the UT Staff Council representative for District 302, which represents the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the School of Information. He currently serves as chair of the Health and Wellness Committee, which “supports and advocates for initiative and projects that increase staff access to, and awareness of, health and wellness programs and benefits.” Greg also volunteers his time as the Community Advancement Network (CAN) Dashboard Steering Committee Chair. The CAN dashboard contains numerous socio-economic indicators measuring the health, safety, and well being of those living in the Austin area.
As Co-Director, Greg’s additional duties include serving as the outreach and dissemination leader of the Center, leading construction and dissemination of our newsletter, social media, and website, and representing the Center in local, state, and national contexts. This year his efforts will include developing and utilizing existing standardized research training modules for new staff and graduate research assistants. By January 2023, he will revise the Center’s strategic plan to align more closely with both the LBJ School and The University of Texas.
Please congratulate Greg on his new position.
Danya Kachkou is a first-year Master’s of Public Affairs student interested in education, labor, and economic mobility. She has past experience in the nonprofit sector, policy research, and K-12 education. Originally from Irvine, CA, she holds a BA in Sociology and Policy Studies from Rice University.
Thomas Boswell joined the Ray Marshall Center in the spring of 2021 as a Graduate Research Assistant. He joined our full-time staff in the summer of 2022 as a research associate. His work focuses primarily on international development and impact evaluation. He uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study socioeconomic outlooks for households affected by external shocks and household ability to recover from those shocks. He works with panel datasets and other longitudinal data collected through questionnaires and manages data collection field work remotely. He currently oversees projects in Nicaragua and sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to joining the Ray Marshall Center, Thomas has focused on mixed-methods approaches to impact evaluation research. He has developed expertise in the use of statistical methods to identify outcomes that can be used to inform policymakers, NGOs, and international institutions. He has used data science and mapping software to study corruption in Honduras, Climate impacts on occupational health, progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, and migration.
In 2016, Thomas started his early career interning with the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute where he worked with early- and mid-career foreign service officers in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. He has worked internationally in Nicaragua teaching English and Paraguay as an impact evaluation assistant with Innovations for Poverty Action, collecting baseline data and managing field operations. Thomas employed his native fluency in Spanish during his time as a legal services specialist for unaccompanied minors at the American Bar Association’s South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Project (ProBAR). In this role, he provided Know Your Rights presentations and conducted legal screenings to unaccompanied migrant children housed in Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters along the south Texas border.
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in Plan II Honors and Latin American Studies. He received his master’s degree in global policy studies from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in 2022.
Taylor Foody is a second year Master of Global Policy Studies student at The University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. She specializes in program evaluation and international development.
Before her time at the LBJ School, Taylor managed a portfolio of statewide, college-focused civic engagement programs at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, a nonpartisan research unit at UT Austin. As Program Coordinator, she built partnerships in civic deserts across the state in order to connect students to new networks, opportunities, and ideas. She also created a leadership development program which helped over 75 young students to grow into the leaders they wanted to be within their respective communities. She is a firm believer that community-led solutions are imperative in fostering inclusive and resilient community development.
Taylor previously spent time in Jaipur, India as a fellow for the Department of Education and recently served as a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow during her first year of graduate school. She is interested in issues involving gender, community health, labor rights, and climate change in South Asia and other countries within the Global South.
Taylor completed her Bachelor of Arts in Government from The University of Texas at Austin in 2015 and will complete her Masters in Spring 2021.
Michael Howell is the Ray Marshall Center’s Systems Administrator. Originally from Kansas City, Kansas, Michael worked for Wyandotte County for 22 years as a Computer Operator, Computer Programmer, and System Administer. He moved to Austin in 2008 and has since held various IT positions for The University Of Texas System, Oracle, and Concordia University. Michael has an MCP certification, Local Government Supervision certification, and various other IT training and diplomas.
Michael enjoys sports, woodworking, chess, Bible time, and family time.
Will Swinton-Ginsberg is a first year Masters of Public Affairs candidate at the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin with a research interest in workforce development, poverty, and education.
Prior to enrolling at the LBJ School, Will worked as a Program Coordinator for Austin Public Health’s Youth Summer Internship Program, helping manage four high school STEM internship initiatives that employed hundreds of area youths. As an Americorps VISTA with the City of Austin’s Digital Inclusion Program, Will organized community stakeholder working groups around expanding pathways for job training programs and developing digital literacy curriculum standards. In addition to his work in Austin, Mr. Swinton-Ginsberg coordinated and facilitated workshops on environmental education with a local, student-led non-profit in Cape Town, South Africa.
Will holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kentucky with a major in International Studies.
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