Ariel Kalil awarded MacArthur Foundation grant

Ariel Kalil, a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies, has been awarded a $200,000 research grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to study the impact of childhood housing instability on long-term health and education outcomes.

Selected from a pool of 150 different research applications, Kalil’s proposed longitudinal study will use nationally representative panel data to measure housing conditions in the first 15 years of a child’s life and assess its long-run impacts on health and behavior. Her two-year proposal was one of nine selected as an awardee.

Kalil’s grant is part of the MacArthur Foundation’s “How Housing Matters to Families and Communities” initiative. As an organization that has invested more than $300 million over the last 20 years in affordable housing, the foundation hopes policymakers will better utilize public resources to improve affordable housing and family life around the world.

Other recipients included six universities, the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and the RAND Corporation.

Kalil is director of the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy at the Harris School. She is also affiliated with the University of Chicago’s Population Research Center, the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, and the Sloan Center on Working Families. She received her PhD in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan in 1996.