Irma Arteaga
Dr. Arteaga is an Associate Professor at the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs, University of Missouri. She earned a Master in Public Policy and a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota. Her research seeks to understand the consequences of early childhood investments over the life course. Dr. Arteaga conducts field experiments exploring ways to induce parents of young children in developing countries to engage in activities with their children. She has collaborated with governments and NGOs in Panama, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and India to develop evidence-based strategies to improve child’s health, child's cognition, and maternal outcomes.
Dr. Arteaga works with interdisciplinary teams, conducts, and publishes research using rigorous quantitative evaluation techniques, and has extensive experience and expertise on program evaluations including longitudinal evaluations and dosage effects of early childhood preschool programs (e.g., Chicago Child-Parent Center, Missouri Head Start Programs, Mississippi Building Blocks). She has also examined the effects of the Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) and the National School Lunch program on food insecurity and child’s cognitive outcomes during children’s transition into the school system.
With USDA support, she co-directs the Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE), an extramural, small research grants program, and co-directed a 2021-2022 grants program on household food security measurement, celebrating the 25 years of the USDA’s food security measure. Her research has been published in journals across disciplines, including Science, Appetite, Social Science & Medicine, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Economics of Education Review, Population Research and Policy Review, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Children and Youth Services Review.
