Valentina received her Ph.D. in Social Policy from Columbia University in 2015 and then pursued a Postdoc at the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan. Her research interests are in health economics, human capital, and economic development. In particular, her work has concentrated on understanding different factors that contribute to the process of human capital formation and the transmission of poverty across generations, in both developed and developing countries. Her recent projects have focused on studying the long-term effects of social policies on educational and health outcomes and on how disadvantaged families' greater exposure to shocks (e.g., environmental, violence, economic fluctuations, etc.) translate into lower human capital outcomes for their children.