Mark Duggan is the recipient of the 2025 Roland Prize

Mark Duggan, the Wayne and Jodi Cooperman Professor of Economics at Stanford, has been named as the recipient of the 2025 Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize. Duggan is being recognized for his work in mentoring and teaching students to apply economics principles to address real world issues.

Duggan joined Stanford’s economics department in 2014 and served as the Trione Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) from 2015 to 2024. During this time, he launched the California Policy Research Initiative. Prior to coming to Stanford, Duggan was the senior economist for health care policy on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010. He also served on the Haas Center for Public Service’s Faculty Steering Committee from 2015 to 2024.

One of Duggan’s proudest achievements is the creation of an undergraduate research assistant program at SIEPR. This program provides faculty members with a funded undergraduate research assistant and gives students the opportunity to work closely with a faculty member in researching an economic policy issue that interests them.

“It is hard to imagine someone who does more to contribute to the experience of undergraduates and who impacts the lives of more undergraduates directly and indirectly than Mark Duggan has done at Stanford,” Gregory L. Rosston, the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow and Steering Committee member at SIEPR, said. “He is involved with undergraduates as a teacher, mentor, employer, cheerleader, and friend.”

One student who worked with Duggan on homelessness research through this program is now continuing her research as part of her senior thesis.

“[The student] worked with me as an RA, and now she's doing her own research on homelessness and helping policymakers,” Duggan said. “I think it's made her experience at Stanford more rewarding and given her greater clarity about what she wants to do after Stanford.”

SIEPR has also partnered with the Haas Center for Public Service to provide Stanford in Government internships through the Cardinal Quarter program, which offers students fully funded service experiences for a summer or quarter. Duggan helped secure opportunities with several federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, allowing students to get a closer view of the economic policy world.

While director of SIEPR, Duggan also launched the California Policy Research Initiative (CAPRI) to bridge the gap between academic research and policymaking in California. CAPRI connects researchers with state and local governments, allowing them to share data and insights to inform policy decisions. Duggan sees this opportunity as especially valuable for the undergraduate research assistants working through CAPRI, as they are able to see how the data they collect can influence real-world economic policy.

Duggan’s experience volunteering as a tutor at a local high school while an undergraduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology opened his eyes to the potential he could have as an educator to make a tangible difference. This lesson has guided his career as he has interwoven service into his research, from the issues he chooses to explore to the conclusions he draws from his findings. His research mainly focuses on improving the health care sector and large-scale government programs, with a more recent emphasis on homelessness.

“Before coming to Stanford, housing policy was not an area that I worked on,” Duggan said. “And yet each day, it seemed like some issue dealing with homelessness was on the front page of the news here in California. I looked around the economics research community and saw that hardly anyone was working on it.

“I went into this research area with a lot of humility, knowing that homelessness is an incredibly complicated issue and I didn't know that much. But I felt a sense of duty to produce research that could potentially make a difference for the nearly 800,000 Americans currently experiencing homelessness and the many more who are at risk of it each day. I feel incredibly fortunate to now be working with a terrific team of Stanford researchers and students, from whom I have learned an enormous amount. As a team, we are doing our best to conduct policy-relevant research and disseminate our findings so that policymakers and others on the front lines can more effectively help those who are experiencing homelessness.”

Because housing policy was not an issue he had studied in depth before, Duggan said that he approached the work as a student, sharing data discoveries with his own students and learning from their experiences.

Duggan takes this same approach in the classroom, where issues like rising inequality are the foundation for many class discussions.

“Talking about issues through classes has energized students to want to go work in government,” Duggan says. “For example, I've helped to mentor students who have gone on to work in Washington, D.C. at the Department of Health and Human Services on issues related to the federal-state Medicaid program, which currently provides health insurance to 80 million low-income Americans. There are so many opportunities for Stanford students to apply their smarts and their work ethic to tackle things that are going to help people who are really struggling.”

Through his research, teaching, and mentorship, Duggan continues to inspire students to use economics as a tool for public good, shaping future leaders who are committed to addressing society’s most urgent challenges. Duggan will be recognized for his work and presented with the Roland Prize at a celebration on March 18.