Steven Hemelt is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hemelt is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), a Fellow in the CESifo Research Network, and a Senior Researcher at the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). He serves as an Associate Editor of Education Finance and Policy and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP).

Hemelt’s primary fields of interest are the economics of education, education policy, labor economics, and program evaluation. His work uses quantitative methods to inform contemporary policy issues. Hemelt’s current research explores how public policy shapes educational attainment, skill development, and transitions to adulthood—particularly for students from low-income backgrounds. His work has appeared in public policy, economics, and education journals including the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Labor Economics, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. His research has been supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Spencer, Smith Richardson, William T. Grant, and Russell Sage foundations.

Hemelt teaches courses on research design, causal inference, and policy analysis. Before joining the faculty at UNC, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan and an Assistant Professor at Cornell College. Prior to graduate school, he was a high school teacher in Maryland. Hemelt holds bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Spanish, a master’s degree in Economic Policy Analysis, and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).