Elizabeth Engle

Professor Engle is a labor economist whose research focuses on low-wage labor markets. She studies programs and policies that aim to improve conditions for workers or remove barriers to accessing occupations with more opportunity for economic advancement. Her past research has examined issues like criminal-record-based restrictions on occupational licenses and the extension of minimum wage, overtime, and travel pay protections to home care workers. In current work, she is studying how differences in employment contracts affect workers’ pay and the efficiency of ports. She is also partnering with a Boston-based non-profit that provides holistic mentoring services with a focus on career development to evaluate the long-term effects of their program. In her free time, she enjoys playing piano, adding to the immense pile of books she intends to read, and failing to learn Spanish.

Before graduate school, Professor Engle spent a year of volunteer service with isolated elders in Chicago. She holds a BA in Classics with a minor in Mathematics from Davidson College and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. Professor Engle is a faculty affiliate for the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame.

BA: Classics, Davidson College, 2015
PhD: Economics, Harvard University, 2023