Dr Kerris Cooper is a Senior Researcher at EPI. Until 2021 she worked at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the LSE, where she is currently a Visiting Senior Fellow. Kerris has over ten years of research experience focused on poverty and inequalities, covering many topics including the causal effect of income on children’s outcomes, the role of social security policies in mitigating or exacerbating inequalities, changes in the attitudinal context for policymaking, and data gaps in violent crime statistics. Kerris’ expertise relates to childhood inequalities and in 2017 she completed a PhD in Social Policy at the LSE, exploring the relationship between poverty and parenting in the UK and the role of mothers’ mental health.