Maria D. Fitzpatrick’s research focus is on child and family policy, with a particular interest in the economics of education. Specific studies have focused on early childhood education policies, higher education, teacher compensation, benefits and labor supply, teacher pensions and retirement, child maltreatment, incarceration’s effects on children and mothers, and the effects of retirement on the health of older Americans.

Professor Fitzpatrick is also the Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Brooks School. She is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as an Affiliate in the CESifo Research Network, the Cornell Population Center, and the Center for the Study of Inequality.  

Before arriving at Cornell, Professor Fitzpatrick was a Searle Freedom Trust postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. After receiving an undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she earned her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia, where she was both an Institute for Education Sciences and Spencer Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow.