About Me

Elizabeth A. Dobis

Economist and Regional Scientist

Research Agricultural Economist, USDA Economic Research Service

Contact Information:

805 Pennsylvania Avenue

Kansas City, MO 64105

elizabeth.dobis@usda.gov

Web Pages:

Google Scholar

LinkedIn

USDA-ERS

Research Interests:

Spatial economics, location theory, urban systems, demography, health, and poverty

Awards:

(i) Frederick N. Andrews Fellowship, Purdue University; (ii) Outstanding Master’s Thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University; (iii) Outstanding Master’s Thesis – Honorable Mention Award, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association

Background:

I was first introduced to the complementarity of economics and geography when I took a paired set of "Courses in Common" on human geography and labor economics as a freshman at the University of Minnesota. I fell in love with the idea of merging these two disciplines that semester and have spent my academic career doing just that.

Through my undergraduate courses, I continued to refine my academic interests. I found how economic processes manifest in space intriguing, particularly in terms of built environments like cities. In May 2008, I graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Economics, a B.A. in Geography, and a minor in Mathematics.

To enhance my analysis toolset, I began my graduate education in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in August 2009 and became an active member of the Space, Health, and Population Economics (SHaPE) group. I completed my thesis on health care utilization in vulnerable populations of the United States and graduated with a M.S. in May 2011. My work was chosen as the department's Best Master's Thesis for 2011 and received an honorable mention for Outstanding Master's Thesis from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).

After interning at the USDA Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) for a summer, I continued my graduate work toward earning a Ph.D. at Purdue in August 2011, which I completed in May 2017. Throughout my doctoral studies, I was an active member of the SHaPE group, and my dissertation research focused on the evolution of the American urban system, specifically how population is affected by location, proximity, and interaction among cities.

Following graduation, I worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Regional Development at Purdue University working on issues related to sub-county poverty in the Midwest. I then moved to the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD) at Penn State University, where I worked a postdoctoral scholar in the area of regional economic growth and development between October 2017 and March 2020. There my projects included a spatial-temporal analysis of American life expectancy, geographic co-location of vineyards and wineries, and quantifying agricultural clusters, among others.

I am currently a Research Agricultural Economist in the Rural Economy Branch of the Resource and Rural Economics Division of the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) in Kansas City. My current research focus is rural health, and I am also continuing my research on the American urban system. Since starting at ERS, I have worked on the 2020 and 2021 Editions of Rural America at a Glance, a Congressional Report on health care access among rural self-employed workers, as well as research on rural-urban interactions among counties and the effect of health care supply and demand on COVID-19 cases and deaths.