Elizabeth L. Thom

Welcome! I am a PhD Candidate in Government & Social Policy at Harvard University and a Malcolm Wiener Scholar in Poverty and Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

I study American politics with a focus on social policy, place-based inequality, and political economy.  My book-length dissertation explores how policy responses to extractive industry decline in Appalachia reshape local community contexts and political behavior. 

I am also a researcher with Harvard's Salata Institute and the Roosevelt Project at  MIT, where I have published several policy-oriented reports on community-driven, regional strategies for the energy transition. 

Prior to graduate school, I worked with E.J. Dionne, Jr. at the Brookings Institution. I graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Political Science and Hispanic Studies. I earned my MSc in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford, where I was a Thouron Scholar and a member of St Cross College.  

I enjoy running, cooking, playing soccer, and rooting for my beloved Philly sports teams (go birds). 

You can find my CV  here. 

You can reach me at: ethom@g.harvard.edu