Panelist Biographies

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, University of California, Merced

Dr. Amuedo-Dorantes is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Merced, and a Research Fellow at CReAM and GLO. She serves on the Americas Center Advisory Council at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the executive committee of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, and advisory boards for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute and the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Institute. A former Border Fulbright García-Robles Scholar, she has held visiting appointments at the Upjohn Institute, Ohio State University, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Public Policy Institute of California, and the University of Sevilla. Her research focuses on applied labor economics and public policy, with particular emphasis on immigration, immigrant integration, and remittances. Her work has been supported by the BBVA Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, and the Upjohn Institute, among others.

Dr. Phillip Connor, Princeton University

Phillip Connor is a Canadian-American researcher who conducts timely research with critical policy impacts. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University and spent nearly a decade at Pew Research Center, producing influential research on global migration and immigrant integration. From 2020 to 2025, Phillip was Senior Demographer at FWD.us, driving data strategy on immigration reform, working alongside a team of scholars from universities across the nation. He is currently a Research Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Migration and Development.

Dr. Chloe East, University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. East is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Director of the Institute for Behavioral Sciences' Population Program, which is an affiliate of the Colorado Population Center. She is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin. Her work has been cited in numerous policy contexts and by major media outlets such as the Nation, NPR, the New York Time, the Washington Post, Politico, the Atlantic, and others. In addition, she has published in top economics journals including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Labor Economics. Dr. East earned a B.S. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Irma Elo, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Elo has a PhD in Demography and Public Affairs from Princeton University. She is a Research Associate at the Population Studies Center and the Population Aging Research Center. She has previously served as Department Chair and Director of the Population Studies Center and the Population Aging Research Center. She has been a member and/or a chair of several national and international committees, including chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), member of the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC), member and chair of the section on the sociology of population for the American Sociological Association, member of the PAA’s board of directors, and chair of the PAA’s Committee on Population Statistics. She was elected as President of the Population Association of America in 2023. Her main research interests center on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health, cognition, and mortality across the life course and demographic estimation of mortality. In recent years, she has extended this focus to include health and mortality of the US foreign-born population. 

Dr. Matt Hall, Cornell University 

Matt Hall is Professor of Public Policy and Sociology, Director of the Cornell Population Center, and Director of the Program for Applied Demographics. Hall is a demographer whose research focuses on immigration, racial/ethnic inequality, neighborhood change, and demographic methods. He has contributed to research assessing the economic and social impacts of unauthorized migration, the emergence of Latino boom towns and other new destination areas where immigration has been recent and rapid, and the changing nature of racial stratification and segregation in housing and neighborhoods. Current research projects are focused on understanding the consequences of intensified interior immigration enforcement, the link between immigration status and child development, describing patterns of racial discrimination in US housing markets, and the development of data science tools for demographic estimation. Dr. Hall has a Ph.D., Sociology & Demography, Pennsylvania State University.