Kayla Jones is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and a second-year PhD student in the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. Prior to starting graduate school, Kayla earned her bachelor’s in economics at Morgan State University, participated in the Harvard University Research Scholar Initiative, and worked as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve. Kayla aspires to be an applied microeconomist studying topics within public and urban economics, with a specific focus on the intergenerational dynamics of poverty and inequality.