Author
Natalie Gubbay first came to the Institute to work as a research assistant in 2022. On paper, she was a boon to our mission: a stand-out Colorado College economics major, a Fulbright scholar, and a seasoned data analyst. How lucky that we could attract someone with the well-honed skills to advance some of our most important ongoing projects! In fact, we were much luckier than we realized to not only work with Natalie, but to come to know her.
Natalie did, of course, make major contributions to the Institute’s work. As the lead research assistant on the Income Distributions and Dynamics in America (IDDA) project, she spent day after day in a restricted Census Bureau data center planning and executing millions of calculations. Natalie’s scrutiny and wisdom helped us settle on the right choices, which is why she is a formal co-author on the IDDA dataset, the project’s first academic paper, a recent For All feature, and several articles analyzing IDDA statistics. She also stepped into the Institute’s evaluation of Minneapolis’ basic income program with an eye for small but pivotal details and for the broader research landscape in which the project is situated. Neither effort would have been possible without Natalie.
Adding to the remarkability of Natalie’s work was the inclusiveness with which she accomplished it. Natalie mastered the nuances of large administrative data even as she trained, welcomed, and nurtured new research assistants to the Institute and the IDDA project. She was a creative and energetic force for inclusion in the Research Division, and she solidified connections between the community of research assistants and visiting scholars. She consumed and critiqued research with a unique combination of boldness, rigor, and solidly held values of openness, fairness, and justice.
Natalie also put together a research proposal of her own. Her application for graduate school funding from the National Science Foundation laid out a plan to study how laws that strengthen rights for tenants could affect their economic lives more generally. This work drew from her own history: She had been part of a group of tenants who collectively sought to purchase their building. Natalie’s beautifully crafted and well-argued piece also reflected her growing expertise with the powerful but complex data she used with IDDA and statistical methods gleaned during her time at the Institute. It was the work of a thoughtful researcher confident in her values and growing into her abilities.
On October 23, 2024, Natalie was killed by an allegedly drunken driver. Her loss rippled immediately through the Institute, the Minneapolis Fed, and all the communities she touched and built. We do not just miss Natalie because of her intellect, we miss the compassionate and wise person who used that intellect well and for good.
This article is featured in the Spring 2025 issue of For All, the magazine of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute
More scholar spotlights from this issue
Chi Hyun Kim—How history shapes our relationship to risk
Karen Kopecky—Unpacking dysfunction in long-term care insurance
Lukas Mann—Messy realities, macroeconomic consequences
