KINGSTON, R.I. — Oct. 14, 2020 — David Mann, a senior researcher at Mathematica, a Cambridge, Mass.-based research foundation, will discuss programs that provide employment or income support to youth and adults with disabilities when he delivers the next lecture in the University of Rhode Island Honors Colloquium. His research focuses on reforming the nation’s disability support system to achieve fiscal objectives and improve outcomes for people with disabilities.

Mann will give his free, virtual lecture Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. This year’s Honors Colloquium’s theme, “Disability in the 21st Century,” coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and focuses on what is possible in the face of adversity, rather than what is impossible.

A link to the lecture, “The Evidence for Employment Interventions for People with Disabilities: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What’s Promising,” can be found on the day of the event in the Colloquium schedule, next to Mann’s name.

Mathematica is one of two policy research centers that lead the Social Security Administration’s Disability Research Consortium. The Disability Research Consortium fosters new research from a team of disability policy experts from Mathematica, as well as three universities.

Mann has had a major role in projects that examine the outcomes of vocational rehabilitation customers, including youth with disabilities. His areas of expertise include employment for people with disabilities, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability programs, vocational rehabilitation and evaluation research and design.

Mann has helped evaluate Social Security Administration initiatives that promote employment for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries, including Ticket to Work and the Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND). He oversees Mathematica’s work for the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics, which is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research to produce new knowledge that can improve the well-being of people with disabilities.

Mann’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Demography, and Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the URI John Hazen White Sr. Center for Ethics and Public Service and the URI Honors Program.

Lauren Poirier, an intern in the Marketing and Communications Department at URI and public relations and English major, wrote this press release.