Miranda Yaver, PhD
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My name is Miranda Yaver. I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Oberlin College, where I am teaching courses on public law and public policy. Prior to this position, I was a health policy researcher at UCLA, a Lecturer in Political Science at Tufts University, and a Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University. 

My health policy work focuses on health insurance claim denials and the ways in which they deepen health and economic inequality, as well as the ways in which political conditions shape the impact that policies have on public health outcomes and reproductive health policy. 
I have additionally conducted survey research on the impact of COVID-19 on health care utilization, mental health, and access to sexual and reproductive health care.

I completed my PhD in Political Science at Columbia University in 2015, with emphases in American Politics (major subfield) and Methodology (minor subfield). My dissertation, "When Do Agencies Have Agency? Bureaucratic Noncompliance and Dynamic Lawmaking in the United States, 1973-2010," examined the conditions under which administrative agencies implement in ways that provoke constraints from Congress and the courts, often for behavior that I refer to as noncompliance. Other research projects examine the fragmentation of the American state, judicial politics and ideal point estimation, bureaucratic learning, responsiveness in state policy implementation, and severability provisions in federal legislation. My political science interests span a wide range of American institutions and inter-branch conflict in lawmaking and policy implementation, as well as the evolution of state capacity and policy over time as a consequence of these ongoing interactions. I am also interested in the challenges of health policy implementation at the federal and state levels, and evaluating the effects of policy interventions aimed at reducing underinsurance. My Google Scholar profile is here.

My op-eds and other health care commentary has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, ​Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog, Rewire News, Public Seminar, Bustle, The Conversation, Medium, and KevinMD, and I have appeared on France 24 and CBC News to discuss American politics and policy.

Prior to graduate school, I was engaged in political science and methodology research at UC Berkeley (go bears!), assisted with ESL and writing workshops in San Francisco, and worked on Democratic political campaigns as well as voting rights advocacy in Washington DC. A San Francisco Bay Area native, I received a B.A. with honors in Political Science from UC Berkeley in 2009.

In addition to doing American politics and health policy research, I am a stand-up comedian who has performed comedy throughout New York City, New Haven, Boston, and Los Angeles. When not working or performing, I enjoy doing creative writing, catching live music, and watching sports (go NY Yankees, SF Giants, and Golden State Warriors!).