Jennifer Ward-Batts has joined CMC as an assistant professor of economics, following completion of doctoral studies at the University of Washington, and undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina, Asheville. Ward-Batts is currently teaching statistics (econ 120), and will teach principles of economic analysis in the spring. In the near future, she also plans to teach special topics courses on the economics of population, and the economics of household decisions.

Ward-Batts received a National Institute on Aging post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, and twice attended the RAND Summer Institute on the Demography, Economics, and Epidemiology of Aging, and RAND's MiniMedical School for Social Scientists in Santa Monica. She has submitted articles for publication in several journals, including the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Public Economics. She also has an invited paper forthcoming in Cuestiones Economicas, a publication of the Central Bank of Ecuador.

Among Ward-Batts's favorite actvities are woodworking, hiking, camping, mountain biking, scuba diving, sea kayaking, and amateur photography. (She also plans to add Latin dancing to this list in the near future.) She also enjoys being a consumer of good art, music (of various styles), good food, and espresso.