Monique Davis

Monique E. Davis (she/her) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Applied Economics Graduate Program at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. She was born in Chicago, IL and raised in the Chicagoland area. In 2013, she earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Applied Mathematics and Economics from the Historically Black College/University, North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, NC. Before returning to school in 2019, she worked for six years at JPMorgan Chase & Co. where the first two years she spent in Columbus, OH in a rotational development program supporting various roles, and the last four years she worked as a big data analyst / data scientist in New York, NY. Monique's research areas are in policy analysis and labor economics where her interests lie specifically in understanding systems and social equity and justice in the United States, especially with respect to racial disparities and inequities. 

Monique's career and research interests as an economist are largely motivated by her experiences, both lived and observed, within her family and broader African-American communities in the southside of Chicago and surrounding areas. Monique seeks to identify root causes which explain the differences in inequitable outcomes between privileged and marginalized communities, particularly regarding the Black community, and leverage the resulting knowledge to inform policy changes, structural and otherwise, which bring us closer to social equity and justice.