Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Expertise

• Affordable home ownership
• Consumer financial services
• Economic inequality policy
• Social development policy

Education

• Ph.D., Social Work, 2004, Washington University
• M.A., Economics, 2005, University of Missouri
• M.A., Social Work, 1999, University of Haifa, Israel
• B.S., Social Work, 1996, University of Haifa, Israel

Michal Grinstein-Weiss is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work and a research fellow for the Center for Community Capital.

As an expert on public policy promoting economic equality and social development, Grinstein-Weiss contributes to the Center's research in the areas of affordable home ownership and consumer financial services.

Before joining the UNC faculty, Grinstein-Weiss was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. During her postdoctoral work, she was heavily involved with the American Dream Demonstration research, which was the first large-scale test of Individual Development Accounts for the working poor.

Currently, Grinstein-Weiss serves as a faculty fellow for the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, a faculty fellow for the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, and a member of the advisory board of the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. In addition, Grinstein-Weiss serves on the North Carolina Assets Alliance.

Grinstein-Weiss has written numerous scholarly research articles that have appeared in a broad range of publications, including Social Service Review, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Income Distribution, as well as other prominent research journals and government publications. Her research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the research centers of several universities, and several philanthropic foundations.

Grinstein-Weiss is the principal investigator on a large research project, "Testing Long-term Impacts of Individual Development Account and Asset Building on Social and Economic Well-being," which is primarily funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with additional funding support from other foundations.