Faculty

Liwei Zhang conducts policy-relevant, community-engaged research aimed at enhancing the well-being of low-income children and families. Her work is centered around two interconnected areas: 1) investigating the effects of economic hardship on child maltreatment and overall well-being; and 2) assessing how financial assistance programs can mitigate these effects. In the first line of research, Zhang identifies socioeconomic determinants of child maltreatment by analyzing cross-sector data at the individual, geographic, and time levels. In her second area of focus, she uses natural experiment strategies to assess the impact of financial assistance programs on child maltreatment prevention. Moreover, Zhang actively collaborates with local communities to ensure that the research findings meaningfully inform and advance policy implementation.