Korbel ranked 12th best place in the world to earn a master’s degree in international relations.
Korbel ranked 20th in the world for the best undergraduate degree in international studies.
Korbel ranked 12th best place in the world to earn a master’s degree in international relations.
Korbel ranked 20th in the world for the best undergraduate degree in international studies.
Assistant Professor
I am an applied economist working at the intersection of public health, the economics of violence, and environmental health hazards. Broadly, I am interested in the ways that individuals cope with uncertainty and social turbulence, including housing insecurity, domestic violence, and poverty. My research includes data in all scales, including original data collection, "big" data and spatial analysis, program evaluation, and qualitative interviews.
My primary interests are in the ways that people cope with household uncertainties like domestic violence, housing insecurity, and poverty more broadly. My training is as an applied and development economist, with an emphasis on Latin America and the economic and social implications of the Chilean military dictatorship. As part of that research, I spent a summer as a visiting scholar at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. More recently, I have been working on understanding the relationship between institutional social support services like police and domestic violence programs on the incidence of violence within the household. I also have work on the environmental justice implications of deforestation policy in the Brazilian Amazon on health.
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Scrivner Institute
Public Policy
Sims, K.M., Anadon, I., Haimson, C., and Eason, J.M. (2024). The prison boom, local interpersonal violence, and domestic violence homicide. The Journal of Crime and Justice. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2024.2365731
Sims, K.M., Wang, Y., and Wolfe, B. (2024). Impacts of the US EITC program on domestic violence. Review of Economics of the Household. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-024-09702-z.
Reid, T. and Sims, K.M. (2024). (Dis)honorably discharged: Identifying policy gaps in military-civilian reintegration. Health Affairs Scholar, 2(2):1-5. https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxae021.
Sims, K.M., Meyer, N., and Walsh, K. (2023). Barriers to Safe and Secure Housing in the Section 8 Voucher Program Post-Dobbs? Critical Social Policy. https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183231217672
Sims, K.M., Barnes, M., and Walsh, K. (2023). From theory to practice: Designing a multi-method, multi-stage program evaluation of the Wisconsin Domestic Violence Housing First pilot program. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 60:1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/00469580231214759.
Harris, J., Sims, K.M., Eason, J.M., Chuang, L., Ylizaliturri, V., Anadon, I., and Eife, E. (2023). The Prison Bust: Declining Carceral Capacity in an Era of Mass Incarceration. Punishment & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745231214426.
Skidmore, M.E., Sims, K.M., and Gibbs, H.K. (2023). Agricultural intensification and childhood cancer in Brazil. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(45). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306003120.
* PNAS Cozzarelli Prize Finalist, Class V Behavioral and Social Sciences https://www.pnas.org/post/update/2023-cozzarelli-prize-recipients
* In the popular press (selected): "Soy pesticides killed 123 children in rural areas in 11 years, study says" O Globo, October 30, 2023.; "Brazil child cancer deaths linked to soy farming, study finds" Reuters, November 1, 2023; "The sick children of Brazilian agriculture" Dialogue Earth, August 29, 2024.
Skidmore, M.E., Sims, K.M., Rausch, L., and Gibbs, H.K. (2022). Productive cattle ranches reduce carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters, 17(6): 064026. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6f70.
Sims, K.M., Foltz, J., and Skidmore, M.E. (2021). Prisons as drivers of COVID-19 spread in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 111(8): 1534-1541. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306352.
* In the popular press (selected): "State Prisons Fueled Covid-19 Spread in Their Areas Last Spring, Study Suggests" Gizmodo, June 29, 2021."
Cozzarrelli Prize Finalist -- Class V, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
PPOL 3115 Economics for Public Policy
PPOL 4200 Microeconomics for Public Policy
PPOL 4500 Cost Benefit Analysis
Ph.D., Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022
M.S., Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019
B.A., Economics, California State University, Fresno, 2016
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