In my current role at the Department of Finance, I conduct analysis related to personal income tax policy with a focus on employment-related tax measures. I engage and consult with key stakeholders in the development of policy proposals and produce briefing materials and recommendations related to these measures for the Minister. I conduct quantitative analysis using both administrative and survey data to estimate the costs associated with different policy options, as well as their expected impact on the lives of Canadians.

At the Center for Education Statistics, I wrote the 2016 Census release-day articles related to education and carried them through the dissemination cycle; assisted in the production of release-day communications materials for the 2016 census; and was a tier-two spokesperson for the education release. As a tier-two spokesperson, I presented findings at the federal lock-up to an audience from other federal departments and agencies. I was also interviewed by journalists from CBC Halifax and CBC New Brunswick. I also began and then supervised the production of a post-release census article that looked at how master’s and PhD graduates fare in the labour market, with emphasis on how field of study is associated with key labour market outcomes. I produced the first draft of a paper that considers how literacy skills at age 15 and education attainment are associated with earnings in the years following graduation. This paper makes use of a newly linked dataset that contains information from the Youth in Transition Survey and administrative tax files. I collaborated with counterparts from Employment and Social Development Canada in the adaptation of 2016 Census education data for use in a web-based data visualization tool.

While on rotation at the Centre for Ethnocultural, Language and Immigration Statistics, I conducted research on immigration and official language acquisition in Quebec, with special emphasis on the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area. This research was undertaken using newly linked data that contained the 2011 Census, the Immigrant Landing File, and the Longitudinal Immigration Database. The first paper produced identified the determinants of official language acquisition and choice among immigrants to Montreal who could not hold a conversation in an official language at the time of landing (allophone immigrants). I also produced preliminary research findings that were presented at the 2017 Canadian Economics Association Conference in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. These findings considered how the choice of official language among allophone immigrants influenced their earnings outcomes in Montreal.

As a new recruit at the Centre for Education Statistics’ Analysis Section, I conducted research on the long-term trends in cooperative education in Canada using data from the National Graduates Survey from 1986-2010. This paper highlighted how co-op has evolved over the last quarter century in Canada by graphing changes in co-op participation rates over this period. It further identified how co-op graduates have come from increasingly diverse fields of study, and how this may have influenced the participation rates of women in this form of education.In my first year, I also produced detailed outlines for the 2016 Census release-day education articles. Outlines included a description of the proposed analysis as well as the rationale behind it, and a detailed explanation of how the analysis was to be undertaken. For these outlines, the research was conducted in advance, using 2011 National Household Survey data. The findings from 2011 were presented in tables and charts as they would have been in a release day paper and were subsequently summarised. Planned and prepared the subject matter validation for the Youth in Transition Survey’s (YITS) administrative data linkage in the Social Data Linkage Environment (SDLE). Also represented the Centre for Education Statistics as a key stakeholder at project meetings. Produced a variant of the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) called the NGS historical university-level field of study groupings, which can be used to compare field of study, as gathered in the National Graduates Survey, from 1986 to 2010. This was used in the research that I conducted on cooperative education to see how changes related to field of study have affected co-op participation rates in the last quarter century. This variant has been approved for use as a departmental standard.

At ESDC I conducted research on a variety of topics using data from the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC, 2012). The main products included a chapter in a report that looked at how skills were associated with labour market outcomes in Canada; a paper that looked at the labour market outcomes and circumstances of Canada’s official language minorities; the contextual portion of a report that looked at the determinants of skills in the Canadian territories; and a preliminary analysis of skill use in the Canadian labour market. I also regularly provided quantitative analysis for my colleagues in a more policy-oriented directorate. In addition to conducting research, I was also the administrator for the Portfolio Research Coordinating Committee on Learning, where I prepared the agenda and minutes for monthly meetings; developed and implemented a SharePoint site to facilitate document sharing among PRCC members (which was later identified as a best practice by the Departmental Research Planning Committee); and ensured that the committee’s meetings and planning processes ran smoothly. I also volunteered with the Communications and Dissemination Task Team, which appointed me as its leader. We were tasked with analysing Policy Research Directorate’s (PRD’s) existing dissemination and communications practices and finding ways to improve them. This task team analysed PRD’s existing communications vehicles and undertook a brainstorming process to identify ways of improving PRD’s ability to diffuse its research findings and have those findings reach key stakeholders. The brainstorming process revealed four achievable ways in which PRD could improve on its existing strategy, and culminated in a two-page proposal, which I presented before the Extended Management Meeting, in front of all of the directorate’s EC7s and above. The proposal was well received and subsequently implemented.