Expertise

-Development Economics
-Housing Policy
-Quantitative and GIS Modeling
-Program Evaluation

Before coming to VCU, Michael O’Grady had a long career in politics, the non-profit sector, local government and on Capitol Hill. His research interests are motivated by seeing first-hand the toll that structural disparities have on both families and communities. His primary research is evaluating how local-level economic and community development policies affect marginalized groups currently living in those communities. His secondary research involves adapting advanced quantitative techniques developed in fields including economics, biostatistics, GIS science, and Bayesian statistics to public policy studies. He holds a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Longwood University along with a master of public policy and a graduate certificate in economic policy analysis from American University. He is from the Washington, DC area where he serves as a data scientist and housing policy advisor for the Arlington County, VA and Montgomery County, MD Civic Federations.

Education:

• B.S., Psychology, Longwood University
• M.P.P., Advanced Policy Analysis, American University
• Graduate Certificate in Economic Policy Analysis, American University

Personal Website:

www.mikeogrady.us

“The equality in political, industrial and social life which modern men must have in order to live, is not to be confounded with sameness. On the contrary, in our case, it is rather insistence upon the right of diversity… But there is more and more clearly recognized minimum of opportunity and maximum of freedom to be, to move and to think, which the modern world denies to no being which it recognizes as a real man.”

― W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk