Ben completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2013, and he joined Purdue as a Lecturer the same year.  His dissertation is about two separate topics in Labor Economics:  paid sick leave mandates and measures of occupational dissimilarity (and their applications, i.e., consequences for married couples and earnings co-movement over time).  His immediate research relates to occupational mobility.  He has ample experience teaching in the areas of microeconomic theory, statistics, and labor economics and takes personal interest in teaching; this originates from his undergraduate training as a high school social studies teacher.