Jennifer (Jen) Scott is a doctoral candidate in social work at the University of Texas at Austin and a graduate student fellow at the UT Urban Ethnography Lab. Her research is focused on the experiences of people in poverty, particularly related to understanding the ways families and communities work together to support their economic survival and community-based initiatives to create long-term policy change. Concurrently with her research for the PhD, Jen has been working with Austin-based organizations dedicated to labor and immigrant rights. She holds Masters degrees in Social Work and International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Philosophy from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Over the course of her career Jen has worked with Quechua communities outside Cusco, Peru, with immigrant families in Austin and New York, and conducted research in Mexico and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.