Hannah Betesh's research interests include workforce development, income support programs and access to child care. Prior to joining BPA in 2007, Hannah worked on a multi-city study of low-wage work in African-American communities at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and was the survey director for a study of wages and working conditions of truck drivers at the Port of Oakland. As part of her graduate work, she co-authored an evaluation of the inaugural year of the Working Families Credit, San Francisco's local match to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. She has also worked on evaluations for the United Way of Silicon Valley and the James Irvine Foundation. Hannah is a member of the American Evaluation Association and San Francisco Bay Area Evaluators. She has a B.A. in Economics and Latin American Studies from Smith College and an M.P.P. from the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Before entering graduate school, Hannah spent two years working with low-income communities in San Diego County as an Americorps VISTA volunteer.

Selected current BPA projects:

• Evaluation of the National Economic Development and Law Center's Kellogg Foundation Grant
• Evaluation of Creating Spaces
• Evaluation of California Forward
• Research on a Topic of Interest to Small Business Growth and Survival
• Evaluation of Innovative Strategies to Improve Self-Sufficiency (ISIS)
• Evaluation of Generation I of the Workforce Innovation Regional Economic Development (WIRED) Initiative

Related experience:

• Graduate Student Researcher, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, University of California, Berkeley, CA
• Survey Researcher, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy/Change To Win, Oakland, CA
• Research Intern, Public/Private Ventures, Oakland, CA
• Policy Analyst, City of San Francisco Office of the Treasurer, San Francisco, CA
• Americorps VISTA Entrepreneur Corps, San Diego, CA

Foreign Languages: Spanish