The Hidden Curriculum

In this episode, we talk with Joe Benitez on working in specialized departments. Joe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Management & Policy at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health. His research focuses primarily on the impact of public policy changes on access to care, medically underserved populations and the role of the health care safety net, and the Medicaid program. He has been published is Health Affairs, Health Services Research, and Medical Care, and featured on NPR and U.S. News & World Report. In 2016, he was funded by AcademyHealth’s New Investigator Small Grant Program to study the implications of Medicaid expansion for safety net hospital financing. More recently, Dr. Benitez received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study Medicaid use and participation among transitionally poor households. He is also on the editorial board of Medical Care Research & Review, and he will soon start as a member of the advisory board for the construction of a Medicaid Equity Database to be developed by the University of Minnesota’s State Health Access and Data Assistance Center (SHADAC). Dr. Benitez received his PhD in Health Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he was awarded an R36 Dissertation Grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality to study the long-run effects of the Medically Underserved Area designation program. Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University.

Andrew Friedson, research director at the Milken Institute and author of 'Economics of Healthcare', discusses how to get a book published. They explore teaching methods, productivity tips, varying support from institutions, and personal fulfillment versus department utility. The guest also presents a fascinating paper on plasma donation centers and their impact on people's reliance on payday loans.

We took a little break and now we are back with some great episodes. Some are recorded long ago, some more recently. All are newly edited. Looking forward to a great season :)

This week we have a special episode! We invite a couple of job market candidates to give us their pitch and we have a panel of judges identifying the great things about each pitch and broad lessons for everyone who is crafting the pitch for their paper. The "elevator" pitch is an idea whose objective is to talk about a particular paper to motivate a conversation. Usually job market candidates have to "craft" a pitch since they'll be constantly asked about their job market paper. It is not easy and there are many takes on how to get this done, this is why in this episode we have the hot takes from two professors. Our first panelist is Mary Eschelbach Hansen, she is a professor of economics at American University. Our second panelist is Zach Bethune, an associate professor of economics at Rice University. We have four candidates who have share their pitches with us: Laura Montenovo a PhD student at Indiana University. Job Market paper Alistair Macaulay a postdoc at St. Anne's College, University of Oxford. Job Market Paper  James Flynn a PhD student at UC Boulder. Job Market Paper  Ashley Bradford a PhD student at Indiana University. Job Market Paper.   We hope this is useful to both JMCs and early career scholars honing their skills on marketing a paper. Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Recs of the week: Check out Mary Eschelbach Hansen's book Bankrupt in America (with Bradley A. Hansen). This book traces how and why bankruptcy was transformed from an infrequently used provision in the Constitution, to an indispensable tool for businesses, to a central element of the social safety net for ordinary Americans— all in less than a century. Mary recommends for you to check out the pumpkin pie with bourbon recipe from Julia Childs, I think is this one. In addition, listen a Johnny Cash song! Here is a playlist of his work Zach recommends to unplug from your phone and to do something else, maybe read a physical book! He recommends The Infinite Machine, by Camila Russo. You can find all the recommended books on our recommended book page https://bookshop.org/shop/Hiddencurriculum. Also check out Zach's research on his research page and his food rec is to order a Greenberg Smoked Turkey.  Alex recommends the book When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein. 

In this episode we talk with Jessica Calarco about advocating for oneself. Jessica is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. Her research program focuses on systems of inequality, how policies and institutions cater to those with power and privilege while disadvantaging others. Professor Calarco has two books, "Negotiating Opportunities" and "A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum", which is very related to the topics of this podcast! Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Show notes: You can find the book and all other books that we have recommended in our Hidden Curriculum library One of the recommendations of the week is Zotero bib. ZoteroBib is a free service that helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software. Find more here: https://zbib.org/faq You can also check out Alex's guide on how to manage reference for research here: https://hollina.github.io/managing-references.html Another recommendation is the Facebook group "Buy Nothing". This is a Facebook group, that aims to have people give out free items to members of their own local community. It's a great way of recycle or ask for favors!

This week we talked with Jose Fernandez about the American Society of Hispanic Economists. Jose is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Louisville. He graduated from the University of Virginia. He conducts research in crime, health, and labor economics. He is serving a second term as a member of the American Economic Association Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession, a fellow of the Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE), and the former President of the Hispanic/Latino Faculty and Staff Association at the University of Louisville. He was the past President of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE).  Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Show notes: If you are more interested in learning about ASHE check their website: https://asheweb.org Jose spoke about the list of URM economist working in many fields. You can see the list here. Jose also talked about a paper on "Who gets invited to Seminar Talks" by Doleac, Hengel and Pancotti. Find that paper here.  Jose mentioned his to-do app is called MinimaList.  Jose's recommendation of the week is the book "Eat that Frog" by Brian Tracy.  Alex's recommendation of the week is the book "Teaching statistics: A bag of tricks" by Andrew Gellman and Deborah Nolan.  You can find these and all books recommended on our Hidden Curriculum Book List! https://bookshop.org/shop/Hiddencurriculum Sebastian's recommendation of the week is the Chirr.app which is an app that helps write and publish twitter threads. 

In this episode we talk with Sarah Hamersma about statistical grammar. Sarah Hamersma is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs and a Senior Research Associate in the Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University. Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Notes from the episode A link to Sarah’s essay on statistical grammar here, https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/docs/default-source/research/cpr/faculty/hamersma-statsgrammarfail-2022-accessible.pdf A link to Sarah’s essay, Uncertainty: The beauty and bedrock of statistics, https://comment.org/uncertainty-the-beauty-and-bedrock-of-statistics/ A video lecture including the analogy for the golem of Prague and statistical models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cclUd_HoRlo The Scientific American article about the developemtn and approval of the race specific drug BiDil, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-in-a-bottle/ Recommendations of the Week Sarah’s tip of the week is to read Tish Harrison Warren in the New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/22/opinion/faith-spirituality.html Alex recommends using the @ symbol when using stata reshape command. See here for more details, https://www.stata.com/manuals/dreshape.pdf Sebastian recommends going on a short vacation at the end of the semester to help transition to summer research.

Kosali Simon, a Distinguished Professor at Indiana University and a member of the National Academy of Medicine, delves into the nitty-gritty of crafting effective tenure recommendation letters. She emphasizes how context, clarity, and specificity can make a significant difference in the tenure evaluation process. The conversation also touches on the importance of real-time health data, as well as practical productivity tools like Obsidian and strategies to limit distractions on mobile devices. Tune in for insights that blend academia with actionable advice!

E37 In this episode we talk with Marc Bellemare about his new book, Doing Economics: What You Should Have Learned in Grad School―But Didn’t. You can pre-order Marc's book here.  Marc Bellemare is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Distinguished University Teaching Professor, and Northrop Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. Marc's research focuses on agricultural economics and applied econometrics. Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Associate Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Notes from the episode Marc mentions harvester or sorrow by Metallica. You can energize your day here,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3yWbRngyJs  Marc's working paper: Bellemare, Marc F., Jeffrey R. Bloem, and Noah Wexler (2020), “The Paper of How: Estimating Treatment Effects Using the Front-Door Criterion.” Recommendations of the Week Marc recommends the silver spoon, https://www.phaidon.com/store/food-cook/the-silver-spoon-9780714862569/, an Italian cook book. Alex recommends using pacman for package management in R, http://trinker.github.io/pacman/vignettes/Introduction_to_pacman.html Sebastian recommends using slack, https://slack.com

In this episode we talk with the team from the Research in Color Foundation about their framework for mentoring students. The Research in Color Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to increasing the number of Ph.D. students of color in economics and economics-adjacent disciplines, and amplifying meaningful economic and policy research on communities of color. RIC does this by matching minorities looking to pursue doctoral degrees in these fields with seasoned professionals who will serve as mentors. In this conversation we talked with Chinemelu Okafor (Founder and President), Odichinma Akosionu (Director of Operations), and Rahma Ahmed (former Vice-president). Sebastian Tello-Trillo is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy in the University of Virginia. Alex Hollingsworth is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indiana University. Show notes: Chinemelu recommends taking some time of your day to read a book! This could be any type of book, doesn’t have to be a “serious” read. Odichinma recommends an air fryer, you’ll love it! She also recommends “Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself” by ****Nedra Glover Tawwab. You can find this an all other recommended books in this list. Rahma, recommends using audiobooks as a way to read your books! She specifically recommends two apps, the first one is Libby which can connect to your local library so you can access free audiobooks! The other app is LibriVox which offers free public domain audiobooks