About Me

Jenna Shelton is a PhD candidate at Cornell University's Jeb E. Brooks School of  Public Policy & Management whose research spans the topics of public policy, child welfare, and poverty and inequality.  They study how involvement with multiple institutions—including child welfare, criminal justice, education, and health systems—influences family and child wellbeing. 

Their research investigates how multi-system involvement: 1) exacerbates inequality across the life course especially for marginalized populations, 2) creates unintended gaps in policy, and 3) shapes the effectiveness of social services. They use quantitative and qualitative methods to examine how multi-institutional involvement influences wellbeing for children in poverty and how policy levers can foster positive relational processes between children and adults.  Their dissertation uses demographic, econometric, and qualitative approaches to examine how under-represented youth in foster care (i.e., siblings raising siblings) are impacted by social services and kinship care policies.