Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, MSW, MA, is the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis where she is also serves as the Associate Dean for Policy Initiatives, the director of the university-wide Social Policy Institute, and the founding director of the Centene Center for Health Transformation. She serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She previously held positions as a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she established the Asset-Building Research Group.
Education and academic career
Dr. Grinstein-Weiss received her Ph.D. in social work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, her M.A. in economics from the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and her MSW and B.A. from Haifa University, Israel. After obtaining her PhD, she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis and later joined University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill as a faculty member, where she founded the Asset-Building Research Group. In July 2012, Grinstein-Weiss merged her center with the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2015, she founded the Centene Center for Health Transformation, an industry-academic research collaboration with Fortune 100 company Centene Corporation.
She has held leadership roles with the Clinton Global Initiative and was identified as one of the highest-impact social work scholars by research on social work practice. Her honors include induction into the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, the Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award, and the Smith Richardson Foundation Domestic Public Policy Research Fellowship. Dr. Grinstein-Weiss served as associate policy editor for Behavioral Science and Policy and associate editor for Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research.
Social Policy Institute
The Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis is devoted to advancing equitable social policies by conducting research, activating solutions and developing leaders. The institute, which launched in 2019, works to improve equity in four key areas—financial security, health, education and housing. SPI uses research to inform interventions and policy solutions, while also developing, educating and training new leaders to help move this important work forward. The institute informs policy change by sharing research findings and promising solutions with policymakers around the world with the goal that all people have equitable access to social and economic opportunities.
Research
As a leading researcher in social mobility, Dr. Grinstein-Weiss is an influential voice in the design of innovative social policies in the United States and internationally. She conducts research on improving health and socio-economic mobility for low-income households by creating scalable, evidence-based interventions to inform and shape policy, domestically and internationally. Currently, she leads several large-scale research initiatives promoting financial inclusion and health equity through unique industry-academic and government-academic partnerships.
Research Partnerships
Dr. Grinstein-Weiss has been supported by government agencies including the U.S. Department of Treasury, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In addition, her research won the support of philanthropic foundations such as the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and Annie E. Casey Foundation. She also works closely in collaborations with industry partners, including Fortune-500 partners Intuit Inc. and Centene Corporation.
Global Policy Research
SPI has been growing its international research agenda through several research projects in Israel and Canada. Since 2017, the SPI researchers have been partnering with the National Insurance Institute of Israel to examine enrollment and participation patterns in Israel’s universal Child Development Account program. In 2017 and 2018, the SPI team, Intuit, and representatives of the Canadian government have been discussing to pilot a savings-focused intervention in the tax-filing software in Canada. Since 2018, the SPI research team has been working with the Joint Distribution Committee in Israel (JDC-Israel) and researchers from several universities in Israel on developing and implementing behavioral interventions across a diverse set of social service programs.