Francisca García-Cobián Richter
Research Assistant Professor Case Western Reserve UniversityFrancisca García-Cobián Richter is a research assistant professor at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). Prior to joining CWRU, she was a research economist in the Community Development Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Her research focuses on understanding social processes and policies that influence the wellbeing of marginalized groups in society. Recent projects involve estimating the effects of lead poisoning on education and developmental outcomes, the evaluation of interventions around child welfare and homelessness, and other impact analyses in the areas of neighborhood quality, housing instability, and health. She holds an MS in statistics and a PhD in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University.
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Fast Facts
As a social scientist, I have the responsibility to learn and teach about the role of social sciences and policy in shaping and combating racism. For instance, I developed a class that brought together the work of historians and a graphic toolkit by a computer scientist to explore the flawed arguments made by social scientists and statisticians in the early 1900s that linked race to crime. The class also covered the work of Black scholars and activists whose counterarguments hinged on data, logic, and expert knowledge. I am leading the development of classes at our school to prepare students to navigate and influence this new era of technology and data-driven solutions, with an emphasis on ethical guidelines to address disparate treatment based on race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, and other statuses.