Julia A. Turner

I am a PhD candidate in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. I study postsecondary investment decisions and the policies that affect them, with a focus on an expanding landscape of postsecondary options such as community college bachelor's degrees and apprenticeships. My training is grounded in economics, but draws on insights from other social sciences and uses mixed methods including surveys and qualitative interviews.

Between 2023 and 2025, I served as a Staff Economist on the Biden Administration's Council of Economic Advisers and as a PhD intern in the Office of the Chief Economist at the Department of Education. Before beginning graduate studies at Northwestern, I worked as a Research Fellow at Blueprint Labs at MIT. I graduated with honors from Amherst College in 2019 with a BA in Economics and English.