Leah Bevis

Degree	PhD
Email Address	leb99@cornell.edu

Leah Bevis is interested in persistent poverty at the household level in Africa, and the ways in which food systems and human capital accumulation affect persistent poverty. Her dissertation research focuses on health and soil degradation based poverty traps in Uganda. More specifically, she is investigating hidden biophysical constraints to farmer soil investment, the linkages between soil degradation and poverty dynamics, and soil-to-human micronutrient transmission and the effect of such transmission on child development. In a separate paper Leah is also exploring intergenerational capital transmissions in rural Philippines, and the relationship between these transmissions and intergenerational income elasticity.

Leah is a third year PhD student in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and a fellow of the Food Systems and Poverty Reduction IGERT program at Cornell University. She did her undergraduate degree at Middlebury College in Vermont where she majored in geography, minored in economics and researched food desserts on her home island of Oahu, Hawaii for her capstone project.

After graduating from Middlebury and before moving to Ithaca, Leah spent a year in eastern Uganda running village level health programs for a non-profit organization called Uganda Village Project. This was her fourth period living in East Africa. In her spare time, currently, Leah enjoys running, yoga, caring for her growing collection of house plants, cooking, and talking politics with friends.