The fellowship is made possible by a gift from Dr. Gail Wilensky, AB ’64 psych; AM ’65 econ; PhD ’68 econ. This fellowship provides full tuition, gradcare and stipend support to a candidate-level economics Ph.D. student who is doing research in the area of health economics.
2026 Recipient
Joseph Spada
Joseph is a first-year economics PhD student at the University of Michigan. He is interested in research at the intersection of labor, public, and urban/spatial economics.
Joe graduated from Middlebury College with a BA in economics and computer science, and he received an MA in the social sciences (concentration in economics) from the University of Chicago. Prior to beginning his PhD at Michigan, Joe worked as a research analyst at Stanford University, collaborating with faculty at the Hoover Institution and the Graduate School of Business. He supported research examining how tax policy and business tax incentives shape firms' investment and hiring decisions. After Middlebury, Joe also worked at Keystone Strategy in New York, an economics and strategy consulting firm.
At Michigan, Joe plans to continue his research in labor economics, with an emphasis on how public policy affects workers, wages, firms, and local communities. He looks forward to building on these topics and engaging with the welfare and well-being dimensions of economic policy that Dr. Wilensky highlighted throughout her career.
