Implementing psychological expertise to pursue economic inequity

Ana Kent, Ph.D. ’13

Senior Researcher, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

MAJOR: PSYCHOLOGY | MINOR: EUROPEAN STUDIES

Ana Kent’s talent for numbers led her into research — but not in the areas one might assume. A psychology major at Notre Dame, she sought to better understand human conflict while pursuing her doctorate at Saint Louis University. There, she studied prejudice and discrimination, creating Downward Classism Theory to help researchers and practitioners understand the harms of class-based prejudice and the potential remedies to dissolve it. 

Seeking to apply her degree towards real-world problems, Kent accepted a job at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis upon earning her Ph.D. As a senior researcher for the bank’s Institute for Economic Equity, her research offers insight into demographic wealth disparities and promotes the economic resilience and upward mobility of low- to moderate-income and underserved individuals and communities. She overcame research challenges to innovate and utilize a groundbreaking methodology that included researching married couples, making her one of the first to holistically document the gender wealth gap in the nation. 

Kent distills her published research into blog posts for the general public, establishing herself as a leading national expert on wealth inequality along racial, ethnic, educational, generational, and gender lines and reaching up to 150,000 readers per post. She has presented her work at universities, organizations, businesses, and think tanks across the country and lends her expertise on several research advisory committees and non-profit boards. Her papers and blogs have led to hundreds of media interviews and citations, including features in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more. 

Despite this publicity, Kent wants to go beyond documenting disparities; she hopes to explore where the opportunities for economic equity lie. Currently, she is spearheading a new project to explore local wealth conditions in the St. Louis area, which would be the first of its kind.