Meet the Research Assistants
Our Research Assistants (RAs) come from diverse academic and professional backgrounds.
Below are profiles of some current RAs. For more information, see the Research Assistant Program 
Tamás Briglevics works with Scott Schuh, senior economist and director of the Consumer Payments Research Center. Originally from Hungary, Tamás is working towards his PhD in Economics at Boston College. His research interests are monetary economics and banking.
Lynn Conell-Price works with senior economist Julian Jamison and economist Anat Bracha in the research department. Originally from Palo Alto, California, Lynn graduated from Swarthmore College in 2010 with a BA in economics. Her undergraduate studies focused on behavioral economics and the psychology of decisionmaking; her work at the Bank is related to these fields. Lynn’s current research projects involve data on decisionmaking from field experiments in Uganda and from lab experiments which she helped to conduct at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Decision Science Lab.
Sean Connolly works with Scott Schuh, Senior Economist and Director of the Consumer Payments Research Center (CPRC). Originally from Fayetteville, New York, he graduated in 2010 with a B.S. in industrial and labor relations, and a minor in economics from Cornell University. Prior to joining the Boston Fed, Sean worked in economic consulting for two years, focusing in pharmaceutical litigation. At the Boston Fed, Sean assists in the design of the CPRC's annual surveys and researches consumer payment behavior.
Angela Cools works in the Research Department's New England Public Policy Center. Originally from Michigan, Angela received her BA from Pomona College in Economics in 2010. Her current projects focus on state and local finance and the delivery of government services. Prior to joining the Fed, Angela worked in Financial Planning & Analysis at the Walt Disney Company.
Julia Dennett works in the research department’s New England Public Policy Center (NEPPC). Originally from Colorado, she graduated in 2008 with a BS in economics and a minor in public policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Julia’s research interests include public finance, labor economics, and political economy. At the Boston Fed her recent work has focused on regional labor market issues, specifically the potential mismatch between the supply of and demand for skilled workers, as well as the impact of housing market conditions on migration and the labor market. Prior to joining the NEPPC, Julia worked in the Research group at the New York Fed.
Jamie Fogel works with vice president and economist Bob Triest. Raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan he graduated from the University of Michigan in 2011 with a BS in economics and minors in math and history. His projects at the Bank include studying the long-run labor market effects of the Great Recession, the effect of foreclosures on student academic performance, helping assemble the beige book, and occasionally preparing policy memos.
Emily Freeman works with senior vice president and director of research Geoffrey Tootell. Originally from Seattle, Washington, she graduated from Scripps College with a BA in mathematical economics. She is currently involved in research pertaining to labor markets. In addition, Emily regularly assists with policy memos.
Jingyi Huang works in the New England Public Policy Center (NEPPC). Originally from Chengdu, China, Jingyi received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College with a double major in Mathematics/Economics and History. Her current projects focus on state fiscal policies, particularly the performance of public pension system. Jingyi's research interests include public finance, education policy and political economy.
Vikram Jambulapati works with senior economist and policy advisor Joanna Stavins and is a member of the Consumer Payments Research Center. Raised in southwestern Georgia, Vikram graduated from the University of Chicago in 2009 with a BA in economics. Immediately afterwards Vikram worked for Innovations for Poverty Action and the Azim Premji Foundation by conducting research on rural education in Andhra Pradesh, India. At the Boston Fed, Vikram researches trends in consumer payment behavior, the impact of the Credit CARD Act, and assists in the compilation of the Beige Book.
Ryan Kessler works with senior economist and policy advisor Katharine Bradbury. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, he graduated in 2010 with a BA in economics and minor in mathematics from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. At the Boston Fed, Ryan’s work involves evaluating trends in U.S. family income mobility, working on projects related to the New England regional economy for policy meetings, and helping assemble the Beige Book.
Lauren Lambie-Hanson works with Senior Economist and Policy Advisor Paul Willen. Originally from Anderson, Indiana, she is currently a Ph.D. candidate in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She holds a BA from the University of Richmond, with majors in political science and urban practice and policy. She also holds a master's degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. At the Boston Fed, Lauren primarily works on studies of the current foreclosure crisis and its impacts on borrowers and communities in New England.
Lily Shen works with senior economist and policy advisor Michelle Barnes. Originally from Shanghai, China, she graduated in 2011 with a BSE in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from Princeton University. In addition to regular policy-related work for pre-FOMC meetings, her current projects invole investigating term structure models, replicating permanent income models, and evaluating the impact of Great Recession on firms' cash flow.
Sandra Spirovska works with economist Ignacio Presno and senior economist Fabià Gumbau-Brisa. Originally from the Republic of Macedonia, Sandra graduated in 2012 with a BA in Economics and French from Mount Holyoke College. Her work at the Fed includes studying sovereign default risks and bond spreads when there is model uncertainty, examining the effects of income and sales tax on the labor force participation rate across US states, and she occasionally helps with policy briefings.
Henok Tewolde works with executive vice president and senior policy advisor Jeff Fuhrer and senior economist Fabià Gumbau-Brisa. Henok graduated with BA in economics and an MA in development economics from the University of Asmara(Eritrea). He was assistant lecturer at the College of Business and Economics in Eritrea before joining the PhD program in international economics and finance at Brandeis University’s International Business School, and expects to earn his doctorate in 2013. Henok’s research primarily focuses on the interaction between finance and macroeconomics and this relationship’s policy implications. At present he is looking at the role of regulatory bank capital and banking sector efficiency during the Great Recession. His work at the Boston Fed covers projects on inflation dynamics, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, and monetary policy.
Kevin Todd is a 2010 graduate of the University of Michigan who works for senior economists Mary Burke and Daniel Cooper. He is involved in research pertaining to inflation expectations, obesity, and household debt, among other topics.
Vladimir Yankov works with senior economist Christina Wang. Together they are working on how changes in the maturity structure of government debt impacts banks’ cost of funds, as the two are viewed as a vehicle for risk-averse investors to safely allocate wealth through time and states of nature. Born and raised in Bulgaria—a small eastern European country that was part of the Soviet bloc firmly sealed from the rest of the world by the Iron Curtain— when he was nine years old Vladimir witnessed the collapse of the totalitarian communist regime and with it the whole centralized economic system. This formative experience ultimately led him to study economics. Vladimir obtained a BA in economics from Sofia University in Bulgaria, an MA at the Central European University in Budapest, and is pursuing a Ph.D.in economics at Boston University.
Yifan Yu works with economist Federico Díez and economist Ali Ozdagli. Originally from Shanghai, China, she graduated in 2011 with a BA in economics and mathematics from Mount Holyoke College. Yifan’s major research interests lie in international trade, macroeconomics, and finance. Her current projects with Dr. Díez and Dr. Ozdagli at the Boston Fed involve assessing the effects of US and foreign tariffs on intra-firm trade and offshoring decisions, examining the impacts of foreign competition on self-employment levels, and studying the responsiveness of equity market to monetary policy shocks.
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