Alicia Sasser Modestino

Alicia Sasser Modestino is an Associate Professor with dual appointments in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics at Northeastern University. She serves as Research Director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy and maintains affiliations as an Affiliated Researcher at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Previously, she was a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston for over a decade.

Dr. Modestino earned both her Master's and PhD in Economics from Harvard University, where she was also a doctoral fellow in the Inequality and Social Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government. Her research spans labor and health economics with particular focus on youth development, skills mismatch, childcare, and the opioid crisis. Much of her work involves large-scale empirical evaluations using diverse data sources and methodologies including randomized controlled trials.

Her publication record demonstrates significant contributions across several interconnected research streams. The most prominent themes include youth employment and summer jobs programs (with 8 publications in the last 7 years), opioid crisis interventions (with 7 publications since 2019), and labor market dynamics related to skills mismatch (with 6 publications since 2016). Her work consistently combines rigorous academic research with direct policy relevance, often partnering with city departments, state agencies, and community organizations.

• University Global Network Accelerator Award (Northeastern University, 2023)
• J-PAL Evidence Champion (2024)
• NYEC Data Champion (2024)
• Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award (Northeastern University, 2022)
• Outstanding Teaching Award (College of Social Science and Humanities, 2019)

Dr. Modestino has secured over $14 million in external funding from prestigious sources including Arnold Ventures, the Doris Duke Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. In 2022, she launched Community to Community (C2C), a $4.8 million initiative across Northeastern's global campus network that provides rigorous data and analysis to address urgent public problems. She actively advises over 50 students across multiple generations of researchers, from undergraduate to post-doctoral levels, fostering a collaborative research environment focused on evidence-based policy solutions.