Bio

 
Melissa Favreault is a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, where she focuses on retirement 
income issues. For the past eight years, she has worked primarily on the development, evaluation, and 
use of a number of large-scale microsimulation models designed to facilitate distributional analysis of 
reforms to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs. In Social Security and the Family, 
an Urban Institute Press volume that she co-edited with Frank Sammartino and Gene Steuerle, she uses the
DYNASIM model to examine the distributional implications of Social Security spouse and survivor benefits. 
Dr. Favreault holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University.